Lust is in the air: a turkey gobbling in the field, a Cooper’s hawk calling in the woods, and right in front of me, a sunlit cloud of lekking gnats.
Cooper’s hawk
4/3/2021
Cooper’s hawks calling up on the ridge. One of them takes flight: such a small bird to be so strident! And the sky begins to turn white.
3/29/2021
Cold and blustery. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk, who comes rocketing out of the woods a second later with a redtail in pursuit.
2/25/2021
The Cooper’s hawk lands in the yard and the doves scatter—a cacophony of flutes. He flies off east where the icy snow is a blaze of white.
2/23/2021
Overcast at sunrise. The cak-cak-cak of a Cooper’s hawk beginning to think about courtship and nesting, somewhere up in the snowy woods.
1/11/2021
Cold and gray—the weather, but also me. A sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk comes flying low over the trees, clearly keen on getting breakfast.
6/23/2020
Three Carolina wrens kvetching on and on in the heat. Up in the woods, a Cooper’s hawk chatters twice. Could they be nesting again?
4/8/2020
The silhouette of a small accipiter—doubtless one of the resident Cooper’s hawks—swift and silent as it disappears into the trees.
4/5/2020
Again this morning around 10:30, for the fifth day in a row, a Cooper’s hawk calls up in the woods. In the hawk’s mind, it might be a song.
4/3/2020
Sun silvering black birch twigs. From the woods beyond, the call of a Cooper’s hawk. It can’t be long till the first shadbush blooms.
3/9/2020
From up in the woods, the kak-kak-kak call of a Cooper’s hawk. The first question mark butterfly lands among dead leaves and vanishes.
5/21/2019
Breezy and cool. The yard rings with oriole song. A Cooper’s hawk skims the treetops, wings lit up by the rising sun.
5/7/2019
The cardinal attacks his reflection then sings in triumph. The Cooper’s hawk skulks out of the woods like a ninja. Today I’m the cardinal.
4/24/2019
The fluttery way a Cooper’s hawk flies, skimming the treetops. Later, a jet goes the same way, its contrail just the briefest I and I.