Join us as we kick off our first 2025 Lunch& Learn presentation on Wednesday, January 22 at 12pm eastern! We are excited to welcome Cooper’s Hawk researcher, Ed Deal.
Thirty years ago Cooper’s Hawks began colonizing urban and suburban landscapes throughout the US, developing a tolerance for living in proximity to humans. Ed Deal, from Seattle’s Urban Raptor Conservancy, will provide insights into these common but elusive raptors. The Seattle Cooper’s Hawk Project is one of several studies in large US cities (e.g., Milwaukee, Albuquerque) and the only all-volunteer, community science project. Since 2012 the group has monitored the local Cooper’s Hawk population nesting density and annual nest productivity. A color-ID banding program helps us track fledgling dispersal, longevity, and adult breeding site and winter site fidelity. Study results show annual increases in nesting pairs, high nest success rates, high fledgling productivity, little evidence of migration, strong site fidelity and mostly short natal dispersal distances. In 2012 we documented 26 nesting attempts, with 22 successful nests producing 70 fledglings. In 2024 volunteers monitored 65 nesting attempts within the Seattle city limits. Fifty-one nests succeeded, producing 200 fledglings. Nest productivity is consistently high, averaging 3.6 fledglings per successful nest. To date we have color banded over 600 Coops and accumulated over 900 repeat sightings. 46% of our banded birds are re-sighted. Our population has nearly tripled in just 13 years. It will be interesting to see when they reach carrying capacity.
Bio: You would think someone born in Cooper Hospital and raised in Audubon, NJ would be a child prodigy birder. But Ed’s mid-life conversion involved taking Bud Anderson’s Hawk ID class in 1991. He went on to volunteer on Fall Migration hawk banding projects in the Goshutes Mtn, NV, Florida Keys and Cape May, NJ, in addition to Diamond Head, Chelan Ridge and Entiat Ridge in WA. He volunteered on Falcon Research Group’s entire 17-year study of nesting Peregrine Falcons in the San Juan Islands and completed his 30th year monitoring & banding nesting Peregrines in the Seattle area. For the last 13 years he has worked with a group of volunteers studying the expanding urban population of Cooper’s Hawks in Seattle. He holds a Federal Master Raptor Banding Permit. He is a graduate of the Seattle Audubon Master Birder Program and a recovering lister.
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