Rural School Leaflet 



1133 



Both birds frequent woodlands rather than open country, and are 

 seldom seen soaring high in the air. They dart through the thickets or 

 skim low OA-er the ground in search of their prey, or come to rest on a low 

 branch of a tree. The sharp-shinned hawk, because of its small size, 

 attacks mostly the smaller chickens, but the Cooper's hawk is able to 

 carr}" off nearly full-grown fowls. Because of their elusive ways, a poultry 

 o\\mer m.ay often hear commotion in the poultry }-ard and m.iss many a 

 fine fowl before he gets even a glimpse of the culprit; and many an inno- 

 cent, but more conspicuous, hawk of the broad-winged species has com.e 

 to an ignominious end by 

 the gun of a well-meaning 

 but uninformed hunter or 

 poultrvTnan. 



About their nesting 

 grounds both species are 

 noisy, scolding from a safe 

 distance at any intruder. 

 The sharj^-shinned hawk 

 always nests in a thick 

 evergreen; the Cooper's 

 hawk nests indiscrimi- 

 nateh' in pines or hard- 

 woods, usually within 

 fifteen or twenty feet of 

 the ground but occa- 

 sionally in the tree tops. 

 Both birds sometimes 

 remodel the nests of 

 crows or squirrels, and 

 generally use a few green 

 leaves or evergreen twigs 

 for lining. The Cooper's 

 hawk begins to nest the last of April, but the sharp-shinned hawk 

 usually waits until the first of June. The eggs of the former are nearly 

 pure white; those of the latter are very heavily spotted with bro\\Ti. 

 As with other hawks, the period of incubation is long, and the young 

 develop slowly, so that it is between two or three months from the 

 time the eggs are laid until the young leave the nest. The young are 

 at first covered with white down, and resemble small chickens. They 

 are unsuspicious and lack the fierce natures of their parents until their 

 feathers begin to grow. Taken while verv^ yotmg they can be tamed, 

 some having been used as are the true falcons in hunting small game. 



Photographed by g. a. bailey 



The sparrow hawk with house sparrow 



