Another go at this....

Cooper's Hawk nest high in the tree.

Here we go again.  I  decided that I am going to take another shot at imprinting another Cooper's Hawk.  Last summer I gave it a shot but the bird died unexpectantly about two weeks before being fully summed and after necropsy and tests there was no conclusion as to why he died.  Read more here.

Little closer shot

So I have been looking forward to giving it another shot this year.  Last year it was almost too easy to find a nest.  Basically I saw and adult fly into the woods and Daniel and I stumbled onto it within a couple of minutes of searching.  This year was different.  Many of the nests that we had found last year drew a blank this year. We (mostly Daniel) did find several active nests, mainly in the Tulsa metro area, and have been watching them for the past month or so.  By metro area I mean right in the middle of the darn city.  The majority of nests were WAY up in sycamore trees and in people's front and back yards.  Not the best for climbing without drawing attention to yourself.   

Monkey me up the tree

We did go back to a nest that was shown to us by a friend last year that was deep in the woods.  We found that this nest was active and it just happened to be in a very picturesque section of forest.  Also the tree is a hackberry tree which is a whole lot safer to climb than the brittle sycamores the other nests are in.  So it was decided that this was probably going to be the one.

Rappelling down with the "cargo"

We first climbed the nest on April 27th just to see how things were coming along.  In the nest we found four eggs and knew were were in business.  Then came the waiting game.

Daniel the "safety supervisor"

We kept a close eye on the city nests which were much quicker to check than the wooded nest.  In fact, Daniel had one just blocks from his house that we could see without even getting out of the car.  Last week we finally saw adults feeding babies, along with slices all around below the nest and knew is was time to head on back.

~2 day old chicks

So we headed back out to the woods only to find the female sitting on the nest and no slices below the tree.  Hmmmm...This was not looking good now.  After some quick math we decided that if the nest was still alive then there would have to be babies at this point.  So I put on the tree spikes and headed up the 40 or so feet of tree trunk to the nest.  The mother didn't leave the nest until I was about 4 feet below her and that got me thinking that I was just gonna see eggs.  Luckily I'm wrong from time to time, because when I scaled the last several feet and peeked over the edge of the nest I found several young Cooper's Hawks staring back at me!

Still sweating from the climb an hour earlier.

The birds had hatched but they were only a day or two old and that explains why we didn't see a lot of Coop poop at the base of the tree.  These birds were a little younger than I would have liked but I wasn't to psyched to climb that tree again so I decided I would put in the time it takes to get a young bird going.  So with the help of Daniel and fellow Oklahoma falconer Glen Bernard, I ended up pulling two birds of the four that were in the nest (Ok falconry regs state that two birds must be left in the nest) and Glen and I are the proud new austringers in the state this year.

I have the same plan for this bird as I did for the last one.  After it is close to being hard penned I'm going tame hack it at work for a month or two and see what happens.  I have high hopes for dog and bird working together this falconry season.

That Time of Year.

The past couple of weeks my apprentice and I have been watching a few nests in our free time.

Red-tailed Hawk Nest

One of the Cooper's Hawk nests.

Kestrel box with a day old chick in it and the other egg was pipped.

Great Grouse Video

Sharp-tailed Grouse Lek in Snow (HD) from Dawson Dunning on Vimeo.

This is a great video showing Sharp-tailed Grouse booming.  I often show videos of Lesser Prairie Chickens booming in our programs and ask the students, "where do you think this bird is found?"  Nine times out of ten they respond "Africa" and then are shocked to find out that these birds can be found in Oklahoma.  "Not all animals with interesting displays and behaviors are found on other continents," I have to tell them. I guess it is a matter of realizing what you've got while you've still got it.

Best Pics from the 2009-2010 Season in No Particular order

Chaney and Merlin, Myself, Raul, and a few Arkansas Falconers

First Double with the Gyr and Hybrid



Kestrel and stripe headed Starling.



First of many Sextuple+ days



Hybrid and his first Canvasback



Passage Prairie trapped while looking for passage Peregrines.



Eyas Cooper's Hawk

Imprint Coop, unfortunately he died unexpectantly a few days later




Hybrid with one of his first few ducks





Katie with passage Prairie from above just before releasing it.



Hybrid with first Drake Mallard



Kestrel action shot



Good day in Norman



Gyr's first duck



Falcons weathering the last day of the season



Hybrid's second duck, a hen Mallard



Harlan's Hawk that was trapped and released



Daniel and Jonathan with they newly trapped Red-Tails.  Both went on to be great game hawks.



Very light Red-tail that was trapped and released



Successful day of getting new and second year apprentices their birds.

Mi Amigo Raul in the Gloss Mountains on the way to the NAFA meet.



Getting ready to fly my Hybrid at NAFA



Hybrid mounting



Mitch Wishon and his Goshawk



Francine Forrester and her Harris' Hawk



Woodward restaurant and wind blown falconers.



Raul enjoying the wildlife



Jason Childress and his Hybrid

Jason, Raul, and several international falconers after a successful flight







Merlin Stooping


NAFA Meet weathering yard