Super-Duper-Cooper (’s)
My friend GrrlScientist over at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) does a wonderful feature each Friday called “Birds in the News”. It got me to thinking that I haven’t drawn many birds recently (they were ALL I drew as a child), so it was about time and I was trying to decide exactly what I could do when this darted by my bedroom window…
For a closer look at this little male Accipiter cooperii click here.
…and “nailed” a Mourning Dove amid an explosion of wings. A flock of about 35 to 40 doves was on the ground below my deck and apparently this Cooper’s Hawk came around the corner of the house before the doves realized he was there. I used the phrase “an explosion of wings” and I meant it. If I had been asleep the sound would have awakened me as surely as a gunshot.
I first noticed the hawk as he came through a stand of spruce on our property line and using the house as cover made the direct and controlled gliding descent shown above. Only when within 10 yards of the house did he tuck his wings tightly and without a single flap accelerate and rocket around the corner.
By the time I stumbled to the kitchen where I could see my bird-feeding area (I actually shovel a large area near brush cover clear of snow), the “Coops” was standing on his feebly struggling victim. He adjusted his grip a number of times before finally grabbing the dove’s head with his long thin toes and starting to pluck the feathers from its neck. At this point Tito*, who I let out a few minutes earlier, came back from his morning visit to our little woodlot, and the startled hawk flew off in one direction, while the dove, to my utter amazement, flew off in the other! That same mourning dove, missing feathers and looking beat to hell, was back today feeding with her flock. One tough little bird!
We tend to think of birds of prey as incredibly efficient hunters and they are, to a degree. However, most birds and mammals die from predation in nature’s equivalent of a mugging or knife fight. Very often it’s not clean or swift. The only redeeming feature is that neither predator nor prey possess any malice or choice in the event.
Had I the time, I would have tried to paint the actual attack. But since I’ve got four posts (including the infamous mammoth piece) in progress right now and it’s seemingly taking me forever to draw anything, I wanted to get this one up as soon as possible. This is what I could do.
Again, it’s a digital piece done in Photoshop with my Wacom Graphics Tablet. I try at first not to worry too much about exact proportions, but simply rough in (and I do mean rough) an approximation of the idea. Here is the first of about 20 layers.
I meant to save more, but I have to admit that I got into it late on Wednesday evening, and simply forgot to duplicate and save what I should have. I do have these two close-ups of the head.
The top is the refined sketch with 3 layers beneath it showing through, and below it is the completed face. This is an adult male at least three years old. Immature birds have yellow eyes and it takes three seasons before the iris deepens to red. When I saw the hawk standing over the dove I realized it was a male because of its small size. In hawks and owls, the female birds are larger than males. In the three North American Accipiter* species, this is markedly so.
I’ve got all three species on my “yard list” by the way (71 species at this point that have been seen in or from my yard), Sharp-shinned, Cooper’s and Goshawk in order of increasing size. Sharpies and Coopers are not uncommon, and last year I had a first year immature Goshawk take a gray squirrel right at the lawn edge. About twice a week I’ll find a small scattering of feathers or a little blood on the snow. It seems I’m feeding the birds on a two-tiered system.
*Tito…The dog that won’t die…16…and after yet another close call doing very well thank you.
*Accipiters are “bird hawks” with short rounded wings and long tails for acceleration, agility and control in tight situations. Other birds make up much of their diet. Apparently they are immigrants from Eurasia. I can find no fossil NA record before the Pleistocene. Hawks and eagles in general go back to the early Eocene (45+ million years ago) in Europe (England), but are absent as fossils before the Oligocene (33 million years ago) here in the Americas.
February 10th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Great Cooper’s Carl…I can hear the Bushtits giving their “confusion chorus” now!!
Steve
February 10th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
That’s a superb image, which really captures the ferocity of accipiters.
Here in the UK we have just two species:
- Accipiter nisus, known over here as the Sparrowhawk, which has become a frequent visitor to urban gardens birds in the past decade or so;
- Accipiter gentilis, the Goshawk, which is pretty scarce due to persecution by gamekeepers.
February 10th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for making my Friday! I have your feed on my Google home page, and it’s always a treat to see a new posting here. It’s probably just as well you don’t offer prints for sale, because it’s doubtful I could afford them, and where would I put them all?
I did see a bald eagle yesterday, but only from a distance. The only hawks I see round here are red-tailed, and usually my wife spots ‘em before I do.
February 10th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Fantastic Cooper’s! Over the holidays I nearly crashed a friend’s car when I spotted a brilliantly illuminated Cooper’s hawk perched on a telephone line alongside the highway. The sun hit it just so, heightening the stratling breast while allowing the slate blue to, for lack of a better word, glow. I used to see more of them in coastal Virginia, but these days I actually see more Peregrines.
February 10th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Wow… beautiful.
You’re very fortunate to have these things happening right in your own neighbourhood.
I presume that while the Accipiters were Eurasian immigrants, the Buteo hawks evolved in the Americas?
February 10th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Hai Ren: From what I gather, the whole family is of old world ancestry. There is some discussion, based on DNA studies of dividing the Falconiformes into two families, with falcons proper keeping “Falconiformes” and hawks, kites, eagles and Old World vultures moving to “Accipitriformes” (sp.?). Let’s not get into Ospreys and Secretary Birds.
February 10th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
You’ve got the gift. As a birder, I really notice it when people don’t draw birds accurately. Your Coop is excellent!
February 11th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Glad to hear it about Tito, Carl: have been thinking of him as I walk Zeke in the mornings.
February 11th, 2006 at 4:54 am
My breath has been taken away
February 11th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Great, once again OG. I hope you’d consider submitting this to the next I and the Bird (The Bird Carnival). It’s being hosted at Wildbird on the Fly next week ( http://wildbirdonthefly.blogspot.com/ ). The main site is over at 10,000 birds ( http://10000birds.com/iandthebird.htm)
February 11th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
i love this picture. besides the anatomic accuracy, i love how the primaries on the wings curl upward — i don’t often see that.
February 11th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
My Graphics Tablet is now 4 years old and at the time of purchase was the middle size of what was available. The work area is only 6 x 8 inches, but I’ve always worked small and this is large enough to cover my normal largest pencil stroke. Working on the head at 300dpi it filled the screen. To be able to get the same amount of detail in a traditionally painted piece, I’d have had to paint the bird at least one and half times its life size of about 15 to 16 inches.
February 11th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
I Wanted To Show You What Has Kept Me To Busy To Blog…
I have been working on getting a book published – the first book of collected diaries from Daily Kos- as a fundraiser for [Yearly Kos ]. Written by the eloquent [Steven DarkSyde ] and [Devilstower ], illustrated by a total…
February 12th, 2006 at 1:58 am
Fantastic!!!!
When I was a kid, that was all I would draw - birds! Usually landing on a nest or something. I could never quite get the beak right. I could only dream of drawing something this good. I found you via Girl Scientists. She was the blog mistress of the lory list I was a member of a few years ago. I will link you to my blog.
February 12th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Wow. Just found you through Botany Photo of the day at UBC. Stunning Accipter picture - I’m hamfisted at this sort of thing so have to rely on a camera.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:44 am
[...] Olduvai George has a new piece up with an incredible illustration of a Cooper’s Hawk and a story as good as the picture to match. [...]
February 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
According to my parents (who I’ve been staying with) we had a hawk demolish a mourning dove in their back yard just the other day, so this post is oddly synchronicitous on top of presenting another splendid illo.
Prey birds are just magnificent. But then, so many organisms are.
February 12th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Feathers, my old nightmare! I just posted an awful black neck swan that resembles a pterodactil. You’re wonderful!
Your story remembered me of another scene watched by my son: a cat brings a piece of bread near to a door with a staircase and hides behind until a pidgeon comes to eat its last supper. Cleaver.
February 12th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Ah! The accipiterine hawks!
Having volunteered at a bird of prey rehabilitation facility, I’ve seen these little blighters up close, and boy are they cutups.
Cooper’s hawks have the personality of a blender on amphetamines attached to rockets. That big long tail (the tail in your illustration is slightly conservative, if anything) that helps them maneuver is a huge liability in captivity; it’s brittle and gets damaged easily. It doesn’t help things that all accipiterine hawks are extremely high strung and thrash around like hooked fish. In addition, the males tend to be more so.
I’m told by old hand rehabbers and falconers alike that, unlike falcons, accipiters lack an instinct to kill their prey once they’ve grounded it. Falcons have notched bills to dislocate their prey’s spine, and usually no reservation in using it. Accipiters and buteos, I’m told, will start eating just as soon as they’ve got their prey in their feet. Accipiters, of course pluck and partially dismember their prey before they eat it.
So don’t feel to bad about anthropomorphizing the little hawk’s feelings; you may think he’s insane because he’s got red eyes. Turns out he is.
February 14th, 2006 at 9:13 am
[...] He has apparently switched from traditional media (you’ll find some work in acrylic posted) to digital painting, working primarily in Photoshop. Here is his step-by-step walk through of his digital illustration of a mammoth, and a more abbreviated look at the drawings for a color image of a bird. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Beautiful! I wondered when you were going to share some of your spectacular bird illustrations, Carl.
February 16th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
This is fascinating, as well as beautifully done. I’ve had Coop’s visiting my yard this winter, which delights us to no end, since our older son’s name is “Cooper.”
February 16th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
beautiful illustration Carl- glad I found your blog, will definitely be putting a link to your wonderful site on my sidebar. Truly fascinating work!
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:18 am
I’d love to see more of the step-by-step techniques—good work.
April 16th, 2006 at 2:45 am
Really, really nice illustration(s) (long-time, infrequent-vistor and fan). He is just a bit stout and makes me think of a sharp-shinned more; if it took a dove though I’m sure you’re right that it was a cooper’s.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:54 pm
brillant, i almost fain.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
sorry, brilliant
August 17th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Dear Carl,
I’m writing to see if you remember doing a pen and ink drawing of an owl and a squirrel in McCall, Idaho in 1976. I bought it from you and still have it now framed and in my living room.
I really enjoy having it and am happy for your success. I just wanted to touch base with you .
Regards,
Louis Clark