The Cooper's Hawk has proportionately short wings and a long tail, making it a very maneuverable and agile flyer - helpful when chasing prey in forested areas. It flies with several quick wing beats and then a glide. It was historically referred to as the "chicken hawk" (sometimes, along with other species of hawk) because of its suspected habit of raiding chicken coops. This suspicion led to the extermination of many of these hawks at the hands of farmers well into the early 1900's.

Length: up to 16 inches

Physical characteristics: This hawk has a slate-gray back and upperwings, and a dark cap. It has a light breast and belly streaked with thin rust-red bars. The tail and flight feathers are blue-gray above and pale below; both are marked with dark streaks. The bill is small, dark and hooked; the wings are short and the tail is rather long and rounded on the end. The eye color is orange to red. The male and female are similar in color, but the female is much larger in size.

Voice:
Call is a harsh, nasal series of kek-kek-kek.

Breeding habitat:
The Cooper's Hawk usually breeds in deciduous forests, or mixed forests and open woodlands, such as woodlots, riparian woodlands and other areas where the woodlands occur in patches. It is being seen more in suburban areas where small stands of trees have been allowed to remain.

Mating system:
Monogamous; a pair is thought to produce one brood per nesting season.

Nest:
The male generally chooses the nesting site and builds the nest, sometimes with assistance from the female. The nest of sticks and twigs is placed in a crotch or fork in a tree, near the trunk. The nests most often are a platform (flat and wide) but occasionally are built narrow and deep. Sometimes the old nest of a crow may be used. Wood chips and down line the nest.

Eggs:
The female lays 4 - 5 eggs in a clutch. The eggs are bluish- to greenish-white in color and spotted with browns. 39mm (1.5'').

Diet:
The Cooper's Hawk is best known as a predator of medium-sized birds, but will take small mammals, and less often, reptiles and amphibians. It hunts on the wing, or from a perch. It is quite an agile flyer and can dash through the forest after its prey. It will frequent areas with backyard bird feeders where songbirds tend to congregate, particularly in winter.

The Cooper's Hawk in an occasional year-round resident bird species in the Park. This species tend to avoid heavily forested regions so it is most likely to observed in Cades Cove or near the park boundary. In a survey of breeding birds in the park, performed from 1996-1999, only a singly individual Cooper's Hawk was observed during the breeding season.

References:

Bent, A. C. and Collaborators. 1996 - 2002. Cooper's Hawk, In Life Histories of Familiar North American Birds, ed., Patricia Query Newforth

Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union. 2000. Forty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. The Auk 117: 847-858.

Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union. 2002. Forty-third supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. The Auk 119: 897-906.

Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union. 1998. Check-list of North American Birds: the Species of Birds of North America from the Arctic through Panama, including the West Indies and Hawaiian Islands, 7th ed

Ehrlich, P. R., D. S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Handbook: a Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York.

Elphick, C., J. B. Dunning, Jr., and D. A. Sibley, eds. 2001. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Gough, G. A., Sauer, J. R., Iliff, M. Patuxent Bird Identification Infocenter. 1998. Version 97.1. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD. http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/infocenter.html.

Sibley, D. A. 2000. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Stupka, A. 1963. Notes on the Birds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. University of Tennessee Press.