Cooper's Hawk Calls: The 3 sounds these backyard predators make! (2024)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2022
- You are going to learn how to identify the CALLS and SOUNDS of a Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii).
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During most of the year, Cooper’s Hawks are silent. But during the breeding season, they become quite vocal! It's common to hear them in residential areas since they are commonly seen near bird feeders hunting birds.
HERE ARE THE 3 COMMON SOUNDS THAT THESE BIRDS OF PREY MAKE:
00:13 SOUND #1: “kac-kac-kac"
Their most common sound is a loud, piercing “kac-kac-kac" call. Both sexes make this sound during courtship and when defending the nest. In general, males sound less raspy, higher pitched, and faster-paced than females, but this isn’t always true.
00:37 SOUND #2: “kik”
The second call Cooper’s Hawks make is a loud, single note “kik.” The “kik” call is mostly used by males when displaying or bringing food to the nest. Females may use it when looking for the male.
01:01 SOUND #3: “whaaa”
Lastly, females may be heard giving a “whaaa” call. This noise is typically heard when the male appears with food at the nest.
SIMILAR SOUNDS:
The call of a Cooper’s Hawk is sometimes confused with a Sharp Shinned Hawk. If you listen closely, a Sharp Shinned Hawk (kik-kik-kik) will sound higher pitched. You can listen to a Sharp-shinned Hawk here to compare: • SHARP-SHINNED HAWK CAL...
Credit for the recordings:
Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Recordists: Andrew Spencer, Paul Fenwick, Spencer Follett
Images used under license from Shutterstock.com.
I was thrilled to see this hawk in my bird bath a few weeks back. We were having a heat wave and he was so busy splashing around that I got within 15 feet of him to video. Very cool
This was very useful and straight to the point. Thanks for this!
Just helped me identify a coopers I saw earlier! Had never got my eye on one until then. Found it interesting how similar to squirrels they sound. I’ve heard these calls many times but wrote it off as a bluejay imitating a squirrel.
ohh yeh have them in our backyard of 12 acres & we also had a female she was comfortable with us for she heard our parrots & knew we were bird pl lol but she & her babies would sleep & play all around our home it was amazing to watch 🥰🥰
65 years old before I learned this call. Inexcusable. Thank you. Heard it yesterday.
Thanks for sharing! There used to be a pair nesting on the UC Berkeley campus, across which I walked each day to work. I saw the female chase the fox squirrels just like this 😋 They fledged at least three young and the babies sometimes sat right there in an oak tree in the middle of campus and begged for food. It was awesome for people to have such close looks--those babies were habituated to college students! One used to occasionally hunt at a little bat colony right downtown too. Every evening in the summer the bats would all come out of the Spanish roof tiles of a building and sometimes the Cooper's Hawk perched there until dusk and nabbed one as they flew out. Very adaptable bird.
I used to hear this call early in the morning as I was waking and wondered what it was. Heard it again today on my morning walk, looked up, and was able to get some good photos of a hawk in a tree. Identified as most likely a Cooper's Hawk on iNat, and so I came home to see if I could find a recording of its call, and yes! definitely a Cooper's Hawk. Thanks for the great recordings.
I enjoy watching them fly off with a red squirrel occasionally, from my wooded yard. Don't enjoy them at my bird feeder however. They are definitely hardcore woodland hunters! Tremendous at the element of surprise!
Thank you for helping me identify the bird I just saw. 😄
Our single backyard cooper Hawk just came home with a mate:) North of Reno NV
The one in my backyard makes the 3rd one nonstop... All day and dusk. Sounds like someone keeps stepping on a dying squeaky toy.
From east central Missouri......Bluebirds are ready to fledge, so have been running off a family of one adult and two juvenile barred owls from the nest box.......Started hearing sound #1 and thought it was a pileated woodpecker until my Merlin app identified it as a Cooper's hawk....Confirmed it with your video. Thanks.
Have never actually seen a Cooper's- but now I know, as I have heard these sounds before. Thanks!
I have tons of hawks around my area
Never heard one before but it was awesome learning their calls
I live in a fairly urban area and the power lines at my house are in the back. I heard noise #1 coming from my backyard one day in August this year. I hadn’t heard that noise before and looked out to see two Cooper’s Hawks on the power lines. One was making the noise, along with some wing/tail demonstrations. I concluded that it was attempting to woo the other hawk.
Cool 😎 thanks for the viewing time today
Not only have I never heard this before but I've never seen the hawk either as they're not native to the UK. Beautiful bird.
Really helpful! I have lots of these in my back yard and always wondered what they were up to when they make their different calls!
This was perfect as sound #1 was the sound being made in the park behind my house and i didn't know what type of bird was making it. Now i know. While we kept hearing it there was about 5 crows flying around that area going crazy!
I’m live in west central NY. Our backyard has a few gigantic maples and pines, and is lined with various smaller trees. Every spring I love sitting out back n watching the sparrows, cardinals in the morning, I had 2 doves that like to hang out on my deck, grackles came every late afternoon to peck the grass and I watched a couple blue jays tear apart my Japanese maple to build their nest last year in my neighbors huge tree. This year all I’ve seen on my trees are two of these hawks. Their sounds are annoying and I think they’ve scared off all the other wildlife in my yard. We still have a few squirrels skittering around, and today I saw them dive bombed one in a tree! At first I thought seeing the hawk up close in my yard was so cool, but now I want those aholes gone. The blue jays were jerks to the other birds but at least they didn’t scare them all away.
Anyone else have this issue with hawks in their yard?
Just saw two Coopers hawks carrying on for the last 30 minutes. East Central Missouri, suburbs of Saint Louis. I thought they were fighting, but its the mating ritual.
Perfect video one just flew through my bird feeder on attack!!!
The juveniles make some cool sounds as well that are completely different!
That's neat, I will have to check those out. I don't think I have heard those before.
I heard this today when I was walking. Thought it was a Cooper's Hawk.
The only thing I knew about these hawks till this video is that hummingbirds will sometimes make their nests right near a Cooper's Hawk's nest, so squirrels won't try to get the eggs and babies.
Nice video 😍❤
We now have five Cooper hawks flying around our yard in Burbank California
There is one female and 4 male birds competing for her affection.
I've never heard one, but saw one close up a few years ago, when I surprised one perching on a wall as I rounded a corner. It flew off to a tree in front of my apartment building where the neighborhood squad of crows surrounded it. Crows run this city.
We have a female frequent visitor and when I played your video a male Cooper showed up and hung out for about an hour. Next day the male was sitting atop a electric pole.
Can't say I've seen or heard these. Usually Bluejays mimic the hawks. Very cool
Mom's yard in VA. Very vocal. They like eating squirrels & birds at feeder.
Wow
Thank you scott I've always wondered what sounds hawks make .
Yep we got alot of them around here.
We just heard one this morning. A couple of weeks our neighbor put a plastic form of coopers hawk on her roof to keep the pigeons off which worked until a real one came to chat with it for about a minute and left. Now the pigeons are back on the roof.
I've been hearing the first one but we don't have kookaburras in Kansas.
Nice video but you forgot the begging calls the young make. Also, I heard a first year female do a beautiful whistle once in December. Only time I've ever heard a Cooper's hawk make that sound.
Do you have a video featuring the sounds for the Sharp-Shinned Hawk?
Not yet! I plan on making that soon though.
I play this for our three hawks and they flip out!
❤
I have heard these sounds.
ID'd the Cooper's by this, unfamiliar call to me. Soaring overhead, could just tell it was not the red-tailed, undertail appeared white from the distance.
This year only one of the pair has returned to my trees. For the past 6 years they have been here. I am worried about the missing one
I've heard the first one.
they sound just like a pileated woodpecker
I heard two of these this afternoon. The kak kak kak sound and saw one going from one tree then back again. Is this a mating call
Was totally amazing I played the calls for a nesting pair in my treed backyard in Waterloo On
The male would swoop over me or the yard almost every time played it on multiple days. My wife finally told me to stop playing with my remote control hawk. BTW I was very limited in the calls so as not to disrupt the birds❤The pair come every year assuming they are the same ones . We have 4 fox dens in the neighborhood and are on one of the dens paths for regular sightings .
Is this a coincidence or some synergistic behaviour
Probably just good hunting for all. We have less squirrels and chipmunks than we used to
Are those the same sounds of accipiter striatus? I've heard those same sounds.
Huh... That's how I sound like...
Central FL
one of these hawks scavenged an hours old bird kill in my back yard. i can't ID what type bird it was feeding on from the few feathers left behind. i can say it's not one of my neighbors chickens.
i've been seeing the hawk hanging around for the past few weeks. not sure if i've been watching a pair or not. they're just too quick for me to get a good look at since they always leave when they see me.
it was funny to watch it picking the bird carcass apart on my security camera. a squirrel watched as it was happening from the side of an oak tree. i now have 2 hours of it feeding on video.
it finally left when one of the stray cats came by (female cat that has a den between the fence and my shed). i'll keep watching to try and see where or if there's a nest close by.
I get rid of woodpeckers pounding on my house with this.
I really hate that due to the continuously advancing destruction of so much wooded area in the outlying suburbs, so many birds of prey have made their way in towards the city, where they've been hunting the adorable little creatures of this area. Most people don't equate woodland creatures with the streets of Philadelphia but there really is wonderful diversity here, thanks in part to our parks and golf courses. Skunks, raccoons, chipmunks, deer, beavers, groundhogs, opossum, muskrats, mink, hedgehogs, coyotes, and several species of foxes, rabbits, voles, shrews, moles, squirrels, and bats (including species of myotises), along with the expected multiple species of mice and rats, call Philadelphia their home. Thus far, within city limits, Hawks (multiple species of both Accipiters and Buteos), Osprey, Harriers, Falcons (multiple species), Eagles (multiple species), and Owls (multiple species) are present. Then Black Vultures and the more common Turkey Vultures clean up after them. It's distressing to see these massive hunters stalking the area for their meals, especially since so many people still insist on giving their domestic cats unmonitored access to the outdoors. A Cooper's Hawk has been hanging around the neighborhood in recent days. Though I'd never wish anything bad for these beautiful birds, I really hope this new young hawk doesn't make its home close by - there are too many furry and feathered friends that everyone in the area love having around. I wish I could give it directions to the El station/train yard where an endless supply of the furry beasts no one wants around (aka giant rats) are there for the taking. I wonder if playing the calls of one of its competing birds of prey would 'encourage' it to move on from the area...?
I hv one on video making a call no one seems to identify 🤷🏼♀️