Oh look! I hadn’t seen them in awhile, and there one was! There was the unwelcome sound of saws two weeks ago and the limb their nest was on was not there anymore when I went out to look. There is now, though, a new not-as-big (-yet?) nest further up on what’s left of that tall but not overly healthy tree next door.

I knew raptors don’t just give up their territory, but I’ve been hoping it all worked out okay: I’d been wishing I could see one around, just t0 finally feel better about it all–

–and there you go.

I had just walked into the room and sat down and glanced out the window when there, perched just above the other neighbors’ side of the fence, was a beautiful adult Cooper’s hawk. At last! The female, it seemed to me by size and shape. Breathtaking.

She took note of me taking note of her for a goodly minute.

And then she started doing the oddest thing. Now, raptors especially tend to bob their heads before taking flight as a way of measuring the distance with the different parts of their eyes. This one was bobbing its head.

But she was going up and down and side to side rather differently from anything I’d seen before, like she was rocking out to the bird music on her I-clawed. I wondered if she was watching prey in both yards?

Then suddenly she really shook her head, hard! Her shoulders too, though her wings stayed folded in–and on this bright dry sunshiny day, a sudden impressively massive spray of water went flying from her head.

Where did THAT come from?!

Oh wait. I bet you I can guess…

(That was just her warm-up act. Next thing you know, she’ll be singing koi-oke at the Grand Old Osprey.)