Cooper's Hawk Crashes Into Window

   Today, I, Junior Barnes, had a most amazing experience. An adult Cooper's hawk crashed into the window. I am going to give the bird the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was chasing a bird when the collision happened, and not that it hit the window because it just wasn't paying attention (or didn't see the window). Okay. I did not see the collision, but here is what happened, starting with my discovery of the accident.

   I was in a room on the far side of the house when I heard a tremendous crash. It was LOUD. I ran down stairs and looked out of the kitchen window. There on the ground I saw it. An adult Cooper's hawk lying in a most uncomfortable looking position, as shown below.

   It then flipped itself over after laying in the position shown above for about 30 seconds.

   It just layed there for a short time before standing up.

   After sitting there for about 5 minutes, he finally flew off when the dog started barking at him (she was locked off of the deck, fortunately before she could get the bird). I ended up getting a few really good photos:

   And one quick lesson. As you may know, eagles have two eyelids. A normal eyelid, like the ones we have, and a second eyelid, which wipes dust or dirt off of the eye, which wipes from front to back. Other hawks have these second eyelids, also. You can see this eyelid in the photo below, which I was lucky enough to capture in one of the photos I took of the hawk that hit the window today. Below is that photo. You can clearly see the transparent eyelid.