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Hawk attack

Kris's "Looking in to black eyeballs" message encouraged me to spend a 
little more time watching what goes on at my feeders. Under the 
assumption that hawks attack our feeders more often than we expect but 
we're not watching at the time, I always have a shred of hope that I'll 
get to witness such things--not out of any joy of seeing any bird become 
a meal, but solely to see hawks perform their incredible flying skills.

Rarely does one get to see the prelude to such hawk attacks. Today was 
different.

I'd been casually watching over a period of several hours today. At 
about 3:30 p.m during one of my casual stops to watch the Mourning Doves 
pecking at the seeds on the deck table while House Finches duke it out 
at the thistle and sunflower seed feeders, and in hopes that my Northern 
Flicker would be at the suet, I scored on all three species. 

But something was amiss.

A lone dove was frozen on the deck railing (not unlike their normal lazy 
roosting behaviors), the Flicker was frozen in kind of a weird position 
at the suet, and the one or two Finches remaining were looking kind of 
odd. Something was up, I concluded. It was very unlike the Flicker to 
sit frozen for more than two seconds, yet 20 seconds had passed without 
a move. "These birds are being freaked out by something," I said to 
myself.

Scanning the trees that line the back fence, I noticed a largish shape 
in a tree 100' to the northwest. Obsured by some of the bare Elm 
branches, it looked somewhat like another Flicker. The bird was facing 
away from me. I called Carma (wife) over to see, and we both watched for 
a few seconds. As I ran to get the binoculars, I heard Carma shriek 
fearfully. DARN!!! The young Cooper's had taken flight, careening right 
across our deck in an attacking dive and I had missed it. Double darn! 
The experience rather gave my wife the chilly-willys. She said she had 
closed her eyes at the point of imminent capture. I scolded her properly 
for not watching! She said she heard a screech of some sort as the bird 
flew past.

I did find it in the neighbor's tree to the south, empty footed. 
Positive ID made. Whitish tummy feathers. Immature Cooper's Hawk. Carma 
thought sure he'd snagged a Finch in the attack, but there was no bird 
in its possession. Minutes later it flew back north for another nice 
view, then away to the west.

What's interesting to me is how the birds froze. Thinking they'd be 
invisible? Frozen with fear? Interesting that the hawk would attack from 
a close visible position with any hopes of success. Over-confidence? 
Immaturity? Are Cooper's that good at catching birds in flight?

Any comments to support this illustration of Cooper's Hawk behaviors are 
welcome. I'd like to learn more about them.
John
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