January 23rd, 2014

Mr. Gill’s class from Woodland Park P.S. was visiting the Blair OEE Centre for Winter Bird Studies today as part of their Habitat and Communities unit .  We were set to begin some bird identification outside at the feeders, but there were no birds to be seen.  Mr. Gill said “there’s one big one on the ground”, which turned out to be a Cooper’s hawk dining on a bird freshly caught.  Hence the absence of other birds!!

We identified the predator as an adult male Cooper’s hawk, and the prey as a dark eyed junco.  We were all viewing this amazing scene through our binoculars, and although it was -20 degrees C, the students were entirely focused.  I took a bit of video but we were still 20+ meters from the birds so it’s not National Geographic material.  Never thought to digiscope it!!

[wpvideo sOjzWyTH]

Here’s all that remained of the junco once the hawk flew away:

Here is a photo from last winter at Blair of a Cooper’s hawk in adult plumage:

And here is a dark-eyed junco taken earlier this winter: