We've seen this fellow dashing past and perching on nearby wires.  He's always watching everything going on around him.

Here are some "cool facts" about the Cooper's Hawk from The Cornell Lab:
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• ​A Cooper's Hawk captures a bird with its feet and kills it by repeated squeezing. Falcons tend to kill their prey by biting it, but Cooper’s Hawks hold their catch away from the body until it dies. They’ve even been known to drown their prey, holding a bird underwater until it stopped moving.
  
• Once thought averse to towns and cities, Cooper’s Hawks are now fairly common urban and suburban birds. Some studies show their numbers are actually higher in towns than in their natural habitat, forests. Cities provide plenty of Rock Pigeon and Mourning Dove prey. Though one study in Arizona found a downside to the high-dove diet: Cooper’s Hawk nestlings suffered from a parasitic disease they acquired from eating dove meat.
  
• Life is tricky for male Cooper’s Hawks. As in most hawks, males are significantly smaller than their mates. The danger is that female Cooper’s Hawks specialize in eating medium-sized birds. Males tend to be submissive to females and to listen out for reassuring call notes the females make when they’re willing to be approached. Males build the nest, then provide nearly all the food to females and young over the next 90 days before the young fledge.
  
• The oldest recorded Cooper's Hawk was a male and at least 20 years, 4 months old. He had been banded in California in 1986, and was found in Washington in 2006.

You can learn more about the Cooper's Hawk and hear their calls by visiting The Cornell Lab's website.

Here are some "cool facts" about the Bald Eagle from The Cornell Labs  

• Bald Eagles have been known to play with plastic bottles and other objects pressed into service as toys. One observer witnessed six Bald Eagles passing sticks to each other in midair.
• The largest Bald Eagle nest on record, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was 2.9 meters in diameter and 6.1 meters tall. Another famous nest—in Vermilion, Ohio—was shaped like a wine glass and weighed almost two metric tons. It was used for 34 years until the tree blew down.
• Immature Bald Eagles spend the first four years of their lives in nomadic exploration of vast territories and can fly hundreds of miles per day. Some young birds from Florida have wandered north as far as Michigan, and birds from California have reached Alaska.
• Bald Eagles occasionally hunt cooperatively, with one individual flushing prey towards another.
• Bald Eagles can live a long time. The oldest recorded bird in the wild was at least 38 years old when it was hit and killed by a car in New York in 2015. It had been banded in the same state in 1977.

You can learn more about these majestic birds and hear their calls by visiting The Cornell Lab's website All About Birds.

Maybe we'll even catch sight of some hatchlings this year!  Fingers crossed!

We had all of the basement windows tested for security today.  They passed!

Despite this fellow's cuteness, it was a little disconcerting to have him testing the screens, especially when you're in the room and look up to see him trying to get in!  He hung around for a while testing the windows. He had a drink in one of the puddles in the field, then wandered back to the woods at the back of the property.  Not sure what brought him out.  He didn't get into anything and sure wasn't shy.  Maybe the brisk winds woke him and brought him for the visit.

Today is World Wildlife Day!  Here at Bentpath Getaway, we get a front row seat (even a kitchen seat) view of some incredible creatures!  We have wooded area at the side and back of the property and we sometimes get to glimpse the wildlife that call it home.  We've shared photos of some of the birds that come to the house and a skunk or two.  We've seen, but not had a chance to photograph deer, rabbits and voles here, too.  We know that there are coyote and possible fox in the area, by the footprints that have been left in the snow, but haven't been able to catch sight of them (yet).  As spring approaches, some more of the wild birds are returning.  We've heard them, but they are keeping out of sight.  

Today is a great day - beautiful and sunny.  It's the perfect type of day to get out and see what wild life we can see and celebrate!

#WorldWildlifeDay #WorldWildlifeDay2021