Cooper's Hawk in the snow...

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me,

he complains of my gab and my loitering.

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself, LII

I’ve always liked this line from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (click here for an online version of the poem). It makes me laugh. I definitely have been scolded by hawks for loitering...

I don't think a Cooper's Hawk was the "spotted hawk" Whitman wrote about in his poem, but this Cooper's Hawk sure seems to be accusing me of something and complaining about it too!

...and he has every right. Our hawks have lost their perfect backyard perch—the dead limb on the half-dead weeping willow tree that extended out into the yard for prime viewing. "Where's my limb?" he complains. "What have you done with it?" he accuses. For years the hawks always perched on that limb—the hawk branch. It was so hawky it even had its own name. Cooper's Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, and once or twice, even a Red-tailed Hawk, have claimed it, watching the comings and going of everything in our yard, including us. From the perch, the hawks could see directly into our kitchen. We miss the limb as much as the hawks do. It was always a treat to walk into the kitchen and find a hawk sighting us. The hawks are making do with the other branches in the willow, the ash, and the mulberry trees, but it's just not the same...

...the snow was pretty, but it didn't last long!