Breezy and cold. The tuilp poplars wear their new, pale green leaves like robes of feathers, all in motion under the gray sky. I catch a glimpse of accipiter wings, hear the kak-kak-kak call of a Cooper’s hawk.
Cooper’s hawk
Cool and partly sunny. A Cooper’s hawk flies from tree to tree at the woods’ edge, emitting its odd call, then heads off down-hollow, only to slip back five minutes later in silence.
Gloomy and cold. A mourning dove stays frozen on its branch at the woods’ edge half an hour after the Cooper’s hawk’s failed sortie at the feeders.
Crystal-clear. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the top of the tallest tree in the yard as sunrise reddens the western ridge.
Heavily overcast: a rain sky with no rain. Up in the woods, a Cooper’s hawk begins to chirp, answered seconds later by a red-tailed hawk. The two hawks exchange calls for several minutes before falling silent and letting the jays take over.
Overcast and cool. Up on the ridge, a Cooper’s hawk calls once—a workman’s sudden, colorful string of curses—and falls silent. A towhee comes out into the meadow to sing.
Clear at sunrise with an eyelash moon and a deer grazing just inside the woods’ edge. A Cooper’s hawk calls from atop the tallest black locust and flies off to the east.
Crystal-clear and cool. A Cooper’s hawk calls from a sunlit limb at the woods’ edge—a sound I haven’t heard since early spring.
Clearing skies after a damp night. A Cooper’s hawk calls from just inside the woods’ edge—a single trill, if that’s what you call it. A ratchet. A round.
Peony leaves shriveling from drought even as their antique, cream-white heads still bloom. Ashen skies. A Cooper’s hawk skims the treetops without setting off a single squirrel.
Cold and gloomy—classic March weather for the equinox. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the treetops, underneath which two squirrels chase, oblivious.
Cloudy and warm. A Coopers’s hawk darts through the treetops. From the barnyard, a phoebe’s enthusiastic chant. Raindrops.
Deep blue sky; blindingly white ground. A crow lands at the woods’ edge and clears its throat. A Cooper’s hawk flutters off like a fast moth.
Cold and gray. A commotion of wings by the springhouse where breakfast eludes a Cooper’s hawk. He sits in the crabapple ruffling his feathers.