Tonight, I was putting away groceries and Non Birding Bill was talking on the phone He came into the kitchen flailing his arms at me while still carrying on his phone conversation. After a few seconds of wild flapping, I finally understood that he wanted me to look out the window. Much in the same way Timmy would talk to Lassie, "What's that, girl? You want me to look out the window? Timmy's stuck in a well again?"
Lo and behold, there was a young female Cooper's hawk sitting in the puddle on the roof of the apartment building across the way. We had our screens down and I tried to take a few photos through the spotting scope as well as a video. She appeared to be nervous and taking her time with bathing. We slowly lifted the screen to get better photos. The above photo was taken after we lifted the screen, she appears to be aware that we are watching her.
The only birds we could hear out and about were chimney swifts. When they would fly over she would follow them--always an eye on potential food! She was so big and so close, I had trouble fitting her whole body into the frame with my digiscoping equipment--I was backed up against the wall as far as I could go and still could barely fit her whole body into the shot.
It was funny to watch all the squirrels hopping on to the roof to drink from the puddle, realize there was a hawk in front of them and then sprint off back in the direction they came from. Whoopsie! The hawk eventually was completely soaked and she flew off--albeit a bit unsteady into the trees.
We did get some videos of the Cooper's hawk bathing. She was doing this very weird kind of butt slap against the water. I apologize for the narration...you may want to just keep your computer on mute while watching the one minute video--I was just kind of excited and caught up in the moment.
There are two other videos you can watch here and here (this was the first video we took with the screen still down). Each are about a minute long.