Resting after a meal and bath Cooper's Hawk
This Cooper's Hawk is in the same family as the one eating the desert mouse. This one just finished bathing in a small fountain and perched in the same tree the other pictured on my page was feasting in. An interesting feature of accipiters is they change eye color based on maturity, season, and gender. My other picture clearly shows a bright orange turning to red which generally represents an older male. Females usually only reach a bright orange color.
Cooper's hawk is a medium-sized hawk native to the North American continent and found from southern Canada to Mexico. This species is a member of the genus "Accipiter", sometimes referred to as true hawks, which are famously agile, relatively small hawks common to wooded habitats around the world and also the most diverse of all diurnal raptor genera.
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