Extended Family

Ruling the Canopy, Stupid Sexy Flanders, and Caretaking

Immature Cooper’s hawk, pencil and watercolor on plant print, 2024.

A couple of weeks ago, in the early evening, I heard my dogs begin to bark. I figured it was mostly likely to chastise a lizard until the ruckus reached the decibel level of an intruder alert. I leapt from the couch and met one of my Brittanys on his way to get me, barking a demand that I follow. I did follow, glancing through the kitchen window on the way. I wondered what required all hands and paws on deck. Then I stopped and despite my dog’s insistence that this was an urgent situation, I stared. Then I ran.

Squeezing through the door of my weathering yard so that the dogs couldn’t follow, I wished I had grabbed a glove on the way. At southwest corner of the enclosed yard, a juvenile Cooper’s hawk was flaring her wings at my barking dogs through the welded wire. My goshawk, Flanders, who occupied the weathering yard was sitting on his perch, calmly watching the mayhem.

My goshawk weighs about 700g and the average female Cooper’s hawk in the west weighs more like 400g. A Coops would make a nice snack for a goshawk, but Flanders wasn’t that hungry. All the same, I needed to grab her before Flanders changed his mind or dogs utterly melted down. I could open the door and shoo her out, but I didn’t want to risk her running into a dog. So, I gritted my teeth and grabbed her, or rather, I missed when I grabbed, and she grabbed me. Either way, I tucked her in her wings, pulled her against my chest and told the dogs to knock it off. For a minute, anyway, she was one of ours.

Since I had her hand, I brought her inside to get a good look at her condition and sighed when I inspected her legs. She had a break when her legbone met her foot that was almost healed but hadn’t quite healed straight. Yet, she had a nice fat keel, was in perfect feather and was otherwise in good health. All the same, If I took her to the rehabber, I doubted that they would have any choice but to euthanize her. They get hundreds of juvenile Coops this time of year and she wasn’t a good candidate for rehabilitation. Broken wings and broken legs that need reset present a long recovery time, expensive veterinary care, and in general Cooper’s hawk don’t do well in long-term rehabilitation situations. Raptor rehabilitators are saints, but they are also, at least where I live, strapped for time, space, and funds.

I thought I should do something for her. In fact, I knew I had to do something for her, because as far as I knew, the Cooper’s hawk I flew for six years and released this spring, Grohl, might be her father. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but he did stick around the neighborhood. It was a long shot, but not impossible and that made her family.

I created and tend to the habitat surrounding my home. I imagine it being an oasis of California native plants with a few nostalgia-induced nonnatives someday. I have a long way to go, but I’ve already invited local lizards, snakes, butterflies, and birds to partake. If I am the caretaker of this place, then the wildlife in it are mine to look after as well.

So, I slipped a hood on her, set her inside of a hawk carrier, and tucked her in a cool dark closet. She could stand well enough on that foot and even bear weight on it, but the healing break was swollen. She couldn’t entirely close her talons and I couldn’t tell if she would get more use of those tendons when the swelling went down. I could hope though.

I thought perhaps her best chance was to decide that I was approachable for food and to decide she would come back if she struck out hunting or stealing. If I released her the next morning after experiencing the drama of being yelled at by a pack of dogs and then grabbed by a red-haired banshee, returning would probably be the last thing on her mind. All that and not even a snack.

Yet, I would never feel comfortable tethering her busted leg. I could do more damage. So, I couldn’t keep her indefinitely. I thought she needed to be given the chance to learn to hunt with a subpar leg and that the best rehab would be daily use in the wild. And if she was willing to break the glass to enter my world in case of emergencies, maybe I could give that to her. Then for the next five days, I worked on convincing her that I could be trusted and more importantly, that I always had food.

While I worked with her, I also tried to work out how she had been so well fed with a broken leg. I asked a friend to remind me of the exact timing of the Cooper’s hawk fledglings this time of year. We speculated that she had likely been beating up her brothers for food (which you can do when you a third bigger than them) and that it had likely only been a couple of days since her parents left to finally escape their wailing fledglings. And why did she squeeze through the wire to visit with my goshawk? Perhaps because he was the closest approximation to a parent she could find. Speculation perhaps, but this isn’t the first time.

Two years ago, a year-old female Cooper’s hawk did the same. Except that time, Flanders was eating and graciously stepped aside when she demanded his food. Stupid sexy Flanders. And people wonder why I have such admiration for Cooper’s hawks. Those little girls rule the canopy.

I was relieved when she decided she was fine with seeing where this all would go. She was a quick study and settled within just a couple of days. One the third day, she was readily stepping up on the glove to come out of the crate for food and on the fourth day, happily eating without pausing for long moments to stare me down. Then on the fifth day, she started getting a little bit bouncy in the box.

She’d had enough and I didn’t have any others options for keeping her still and safe. In her restlessness, she was starting to bend her tail and wing feathers. Soon enough, they would start breaking. I had wanted a couple more days to medicate her and get her to fly to the glove. It wasn’t up to me though. She decided herself that vacation was over.

I had gotten a few days of medication in her. She had feasted on rich food and hopefully had a good store of energy. The swelling had gone down a bit on her break and she was getting a bit more closure with those talons. And that was going to have to be enough.

I released her right where I found her. She left in a leisurely flight for a Cooper’s hawk and all I can do is cross my fingers that she’ll figure it out just fine and come back if she needs me. She hasn’t come back yet, and I may never know if I made a difference at all.

I do know though, that I am the caretaker of this ecosystem I invited into my yard and with that comes joys and sorrows, hopes and failures. It is a microcosm of the richest relationships humanity had and sometimes still has with nature. So, even if I didn’t make a difference, what nature was willing to share made a tremendous difference to me.