Yes, this beautiful but also stern and rather solemn face can mean only one thing…”I’m on your fence and watching your feeder!”.
Although stunning, these hawks mean business and the more passerines you have munching on your bird seed, the more they’ll be attracted to your feeder, and more specifically to your birds.
But there’s hope. All About Birds says, “If a Cooper’s Hawk takes up residence in your yard, you can take your feeders down for a few days and the hawk will move on.”
And although they can be menacing, they do have some redeeming characteristics, as the site also states, “Males tend to be submissive to females and to listen out for reassuring call notes the females make when they’re willing to be approached. Males build the nest, then provide nearly all the food to females and young over the next 90 days before the young fledge.”
So, apparently, there’s some good in every inhabitant of the planet. We may just need to look a bit harder to find it…