Miquelon Lake: Interesting sighting July 13, 2010. We observed a Cooper's Hawk hunting our Purple Martins. The Cooper's Hawk first flew right through the yard and then as all the birds in the yard dove for cover or froze on the trees thye were perched in, the male Cooper's attacked the Martin house. It probed inside the nesting hole with its leg to try and fish out a fledgling from one of the holes (it was unsuccessful). We thought this to be very unusual behaviour (being the first time we had seen this happen since we have lived on our acreage) and wondered if this behaviour was common and would it be used in the wild to hunt cavity nesting birds.
We have had Goshawks and Sharp-shinned hawks fly through and hunt many times but this is the first Cooper's in 20+ years living here. And the first we have seen of this behaviour in any hawk.
Thanks for the story of the Cooper's Hawk. All the accipiter hawks (Goshawk, Cooper's & Sharp-shinned are evolved to hunt & capture birds in the woods. Short wings & long tail give great maneuvrability & they hunt by ambush from a perch or hidden from sight with a short burst of speed. Much the same way that Cheetah hunt. Birds such as Robins, Purple Martin or similar sized prey are the main food choice. The fact they tried to pull the Martins out of the nest would be fairly normal behaviour I would think as accipiters don't give up easily. Sharp-shin Hawks will try the same tactic on Bluebird/Tree Swallow houses hence the idea of putting a double thinkness of material on the front of the boxes where the entrance hole is. I suspect in your situation the Cooper's Hawk may be nesting in the aspens nearby and is hunting the area around your yard within its territory. One recent safeguard with Purple Martin houses is the recommendation of larger/deeper nesting compartments which enable them to nest further back from the entrance. The other issue is with perches on the front of the house. They provide a place for the predaters to perch in order to attempt to raid the nest however at the same time the perches allow the martins a place to sit. No easy answer to that one! As for this behaviour in wild cavity nesting situations it is probably not nearly as easy for them to raid the nest as usually there is no place for them to sit. They could still fly past the entrance & take young who are nearly fledged & sitting in the entrance hole waiting for food.
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