So, I must have left the digital camera at work because I can't find it and what other way can you guarantee that you will see something cool birdwise than to not have either a camera or optics on your person? The two immature Cooper's hawks were putting on quite a show. Even Non Birding Bill got swept up in the excitement of it all. We leaned out the living room window this morning and watched the two Coop's terrorize the local crows. The female was the first to give up the pursuit as I could see her wings drooping while she perched and she was panting. She flew out of sight for a moment and a young crow took the opportunity to rest and preen. I began to hear some high pitched chirps that I immediately recognized as the young Coops. I found myself muttering to the crow, "Hey, buddy, you better get outta there." but when do crows ever pay attention to what a human has to say? Sure enough the female Coops flew in from the back of the tree and made a bee line for the preening crow. The crow got the heck out of Dodge and the Coop's landed where th crow had been perched--roughly 40 feet from our window.

I was bemoaning the lack of camera while techno hound Non Birding Bill got busy with his new cell phone. He took my 8 X 42 Vortex Binoculars and his Motorola V710 cell phone and tried digi scoping a photo. The result is the above photo of the Cooper's hawk preening. He would like me to inform birders everywhere that this is not a preferred method of digi scoping as the phone is at an odd angle and it's not the best quality. But I suppose if you are out in the field and you need to document a rare bird, it's better than nothing.

There was no bird action at my bird feeder for awhile, but eventually an unaware house sparrow came for a visit which immediately got the Coop's attention. She went for it, but came up empty taloned. After that she flew out of site and we have not seen the two hawks for the rest of the day.