Photos from John Mellin an IEUA staff member captured a rare moment last week of a Cooper Hawk Family outside the Agency’s main headquarters just north of the Chino Creek Park.
Nest Description
Males typically build the nest over a period of about two weeks, with just the slightest help from the female. Nests are piles of sticks roughly 27 inches in diameter and 6-17 inches high with a cup-shaped depression in the middle, 8 inches across and 4 inches deep. The cup is lined with bark flakes and, sometimes, green twigs.
Nesting Placement
Cooper’s Hawks build nests in pines, oaks, Douglas-firs, beeches, spruces, and other tree species, often on flat ground rather than hillsides, and in dense woods. Nests are typically 25-50 feet high, often about two-thirds of the way up the tree in a crotch or on a horizontal branch.
Nesting Facts
- Clutch Size
- – 2–6 eggs
- Number of Broods
- – 1 broods
- Egg Length
- – 1.7–2 in
– 4.4–5.1 cm - Egg Width
- – 1.4–1.6 in
– 3.5–4 cm - Incubation Period
- – 30–36 days
- Nestling Period
- – 27–34 days
- Egg Description
- – Pale blue to bluish white.
- Condition at Hatching
- – Covered in white down and weighing just 28 grams or 1 ounce, but able to crawl around nest.
Information from allaboutbirds.org