Originally uploaded by Minette Layne
Another story about wildlife in the city though this one of a more serious nature. According to this post at our sister site Central District News, a cooper’s hawk recently spotted in Volunteer Park was injured Sunday night when it ran into a car near 23rd and Columbia:
The bird is injured; its left wing doesn’t work properly (there’s a good chance it’s broken) and it can’t fly. It’s mottled brown and cream along the head, has a brown back, tail, and wings, with a mostly-cream breast. It has a very sharp yellow-brown beak and brownish legs. There are bands on both its legs, and the band on the left leg is blue. The bands indicate that someone is tracking it.
If anyone has any information on this bird or on who to contact in a situation like this, please let us know. And please keep an eye out. While I fear the most likely outcome for this little guy is to be caught by another predator, there’s always a chance we can get it some help.
According to a comment on the post, the injured hawk has probably been living around Volunteer Park until recently:
I’ve been observing and helped band three juvenile Cooper’s Hawks at Volunteer Park (CapHill) which are banded with a blue VID tag and a federal band (which I believe you have) and were last seen three days ago before they dispersed from the park.
The writer updated the post to say Sarvey Wildlife Center has been contacted about the injured bird.
I was the commenter over at Central District News site but a resident of Capitol Hill.
It may be the VP juvenile female but it also might be one of the many other banded juvenile Cooper’s around Seattle. That’s why they have the blue “visual identification” (VID) tag so we can get a unique ID from a distance.
If you see a banded Cooper’s Hawk look for a blue tag and if you can see it the two letters on the tag that uniquely identify the bird. If not note which leg the band is on: left leg means it’s a female. Then report the information to Jack Bettesworth. See the Accipter entry at WOS for contact information.
http://www.wos.org/SpecRpts.htm#Species
Or feel free to contact me at [email protected]
The photo in the blog entry above shows an adult Cooper’s Hawk with an orange barred breast. The juveniles (including this injured bird) have a white (or cream) breast with vertical stripes. Like this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Juvenile_cooper’s_hawk.jpg
I was at the “accident site” this morning in the CD and walked the area but couldn’t locate the bird by sight or sound in a 2 block radius of the accident. But there are plenty of places too hide. Or it may have been hurt and later recovered.
You can see them flying around Cap Hill on a regular basis. They do predate on the local pigeons even on Broadway.
Today I saw an unbanded juvenile male (perhaps from VP) in the Douglas Firs next to the Thomas Street P-Patch.
On the way up to the Central District through Cal Anderson Park there was a Cooper’s Hawk just getting into a thermal soar after a failed attack: the pigeons were still wheeling around.
Whilst looking for the injured bird I saw another soaring to the north and east (over East Capitol Hill).
Look for a crow-sized bird with a “crucifix shape” with a long tail with a “flap, flap, flap, glide ….” flight style. Once you see them you can pick them up at long range just from the flight style.
Watch the skies!