Cooper’s Hawks remain a presence in Holyoke through the winter
The population of Cooper’s Hawks in the city has remained robust throughout the winter, and I’ve seen at least one nearly each time I’ve gone out for the past few months.
On Sunday morning I spotted three in the center of the city within just about an hour, beginning with this one in Heritage State Park:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
A few blocks away, I found one hanging around a block of abandoned buildings near the library:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
The hawk above was a pretty interesting sighting. Two of my previous interactions with this particular location include a) photographing a fire that left a number of people homeless and b) photographing outreach workers from a needle exchange program visiting known shooting galleries in the city.
I’ve mostly trained myself to not be surprised at the locations in the city where interesting birds turn up, and finding this hawk just adds to the evidence behind my belief that you can really practice the hobby of birding anywhere.
Thinking I’d seen all there was to see, I nearly missed this juvenile near the corner of Chestnut and Appleton streets:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
A bold squirrel ended up running the hawk out of the tree:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Since I started actively looking for hawks when I’m out and about, I’ve been amazed by how many there actually are! The other day I was driving from Enfield up to Northampton and counted 7 just from my car!
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