A Cooper's Hawk put on a five hour show for me and my next door neighbors yesterday afternoon. As I was getting ready to eat lunch, I saw one of the neighborhood Cooper's Hawks sitting on its prey in the backyard and ripping it apart with feathers flying in a circle around it, pausing to eat and then sending feathers flying again. The prey was mostly buried in the four inches of snow except directly under the hawk where bloody bits were being seized and eaten, but the size and color (mainly black and gray and white) of some of the feathers and the extent of the mound under the hawk suggested that its victim was either one of the Rock Pigeons or Turtle Doves that frequent the feeders. I took some pictures through the window and then decided to try my luck outside. I was able to go from the front of the house, around the side and just around the corner of the back yard, first on the east side and then back to the front and around the west side, and snap pictures as it continued with its feast and only glanced at me briefly.

Throughout the afternoon, I checked on the bird and its meal plus answering phone calls from neighbors who wanted to know what kind of a bird this was and an explanation of what was happening. One of them wanted to know if a hawk was a danger to their cat. (I could only suggest that it was not likely. Did not tell them that I did see a Cooper's once with a squirrel as captive so maybe a small cat or kitten?)

For five hours, the hawk alternately ate and sat on guard atop its lunch, which became afternoon tea and early supper. With each pause in eating, it sat and looked around, obviously protecting its kill from any intrusion. Finally, at a little after 5 pm, it flew off, carrying about an 8 inch long thin piece of carcass with it. By this time all else was covered with snow, which had been steadily falling all afternoon, with only a few feather tips and a little bloody snow visible, so I will have to wait for a thaw or go out today and brush the snow away to determine species of the victim. As a finale to this episode, after dark I looked out the window and one of the neighborhood cats was finishing off some of the remains.

The Texas Tropics, really the Lower Rio Grande Valley, is a 140-mile long section of land running along the Mexican border from Boca Chica at the mouth of the Rio Grande to Falcon Dam just beyond Roma. There's a variety of habitats, from deserts to riparian forests to brushlands. In this 4-county region, 512 out of 900 bird species in North America have been spotted. The birder Kenn Kaufman claims the area is the best place in the United States for bird-watching. The Valley is a birder's paradise year-round and in the winter it gets even more spectacular. Over 125,000 birders visit the area every year, and each spring there is a Texas Tropics Festival in McAllen, Texas. The buff-bellied hummingbird, ferruginous pygmy-owl, and great kiskadee are rare birds seen that usually occur nowhere else in the nation.