ON THE TREES ...    EATING THEIR PREY   IN OUR SWIMMING POOL!!!!!!   FLYING around  - AND AWAY ...
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STORY OF COOPERS HAWK IN MY SWIMMING POOL.  by Helen M. Roman
   

    There are always lots of birds in our Concord neighborhood. Old residential area with tall, old trees always has been

a birds’ heaven for all the years since we moved in here.

    But summer 2002 was really very different and special – and here is why I’ll never forget it, and why I called it
“Summer of the Coopers Hawk ”.

    Early in June 2002 we start hearing around some unusual, high-pitched, loud bird’s calling, very different from the cries
of jays and sparrows we hear around our trees all the time and are use to. 
    But it was on an electric pole next block where I spotted pretty big hawk one morning for the first time.
I walked around the block and met my neighbor Craig, who told me that there is a Coopers Hawk’s nest on the tree right in front
of his house, with 3 babies in it. It was the “Big Mama” I saw on the top of electric pole.
    I started walking around my neighborhood every evening after work, and after meeting more neighbors I found out that there
are at least 3 or 4 more Coopers Families around.  Since I always carry my camera with me “everywhere I go” – pretty soon
I made a nice collection of hawks’ photographs.
  After few weeks, when babies left their nests and  started learning to fly, hawks were everywhere -  
on our trees, electric poles and lines, roofs, front yards and backyards – they literally took our neighborhood “under their wings”!

    But I would never dream of something most unexpected – what had happened one Monday morning which I’ll never forget –
and here is my:

STORY OF COOPERS HAWK IN MY SWIMMING POOL.

    I’ll never know for sure how this poor guy really get into it – but I know that it was the most interesting thing that happened to me
this summer. I woke up to the really loud sound of big commotion of bird’s cry and splashing & clapping on the water in our swimming
pool right behind my wide open bedroom window.

    I run outside as fast as I could, waking up my husband & my son on my way. We couldn’t believe our own eyes when we seen
this scene: there were 2 young hawks, one in the water, desperately beating it with its wings, making lots of splashing, but
unable to get out on its own, and the other one on the very edge of the concrete brim, looking down and crying loud to its companion.
He flew up to the roof when spotted us.  My husband grabbed the leaves net and “fished” the poor bird up. It was exhausted and
soaked wet.
At first it looked like a wet, ugly, dripping big chicken, when we put him on the table – so miserable!
But when I looked into those big, round eyes, he looked straight back at me, with no fear at all, just this tired and surprised look
as if he was saying:
“WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!”  
    I wanted to grab a towel and dry him up, but I was afraid I’ll scare him. So I let the sun do the job, I grabbed my camera instead,
and I took some most awesome photos of my life!  (Just tell me, please, how many nature photographers had this opportunity to make
close-up portraits of wild Coopers Hawk on their camera’s macro setting???)

    “My” hawk let me come really close, he was very calm and visibly bored, after a while his eyes were saying “LADY, I’M GRATEFUL
FOR SAVING MY LIFE, BUT GIVE ME A BREAK NOW, GO AWAY!”

    It took him an hour to completely dry up, and then we were able to see how beautiful he really was.  I took a lot
of shots of this magnificent, proud creature, before he was able to fly to the fence first, then looked back at me as to say
“THANKS AGAIN! – I'LL BETTER GO NOW”  – and flew back to the trees.

    “HAVE A GOOD LIFE” – I called after him – “SEE YA AROUND!”.
And I’m sure I did – he might be one of those “Flying around…and away” on my website.
 

    It is quite again around the neighborhood, hawks are gone and jays are happy, but I surely missed those beautiful, big birds, gliding silently above us.

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ON THE TREES ...    EATING THEIR PREY   IN OUR SWIMMING POOL!!!!!!   FLYING around  - AND AWAY ...
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