Seeing COOPER’S HAWKS in a nest was a neat discovery. An avid birder told this scribe about the nest and wondered if I wanted to try to get some photographs. Of course the answer was yes, so off I went with camera, long lens and sturdy tripod onto one of the trail system networks at Marshall County Conservation Board’s Grammer Grove Park. The date was July 4. Sure enough, the nest was easily seen but not so easily photographed. There seemed to be a persistent nuisance wherever I went … mosquitoes. But I knew that was going to be a factor so I prepared in advance to keep most of the little bugs away from me.

Mosquitoes were bothering the young Cooper’s Hawks. While peering through the camera viewfinder, it was apparent that the young birds were being pestered. They had no choice but to tolerate this short-term problem. Quite frequently they would shake their heads rapidly to dislodge the little blood suckers while keeping a watchful eye on the guy on the ground. I obliged by making a quick set up, capturing several usable images, and then departing the area. That would allow the parent Cooper’s to return to the nest, perhaps with a bird to feed the growing young.

Cooper’s Hawks will show up periodically at or near backyard bird feeders, waiting to catch an unsuspecting sparrow, bluejay, cardinal or dove. Cooper’s are very fast fliers and can thread themselves through thick forest tree branches easily. When they get close to a food source, a puff of feathers from the quarry tells of a successful impact and certain death for the songbird. However, in nature, everything has its place. Wherever there is a large food source, there will be a corresponding predator portion to this food chain. Cooper’s are one bird to conduct its duty of survival.

Cooper’s Hawks are in the family of accipiters. Flight style is characterized by a few stiff wingbeats followed by short glides. To catch another bird in flight, the Cooper’s knows how to speed up the action with powerful wing action and split second timing to pass through or past tree branches at top speed. Dashing through trees does have its own hazards … collisions. Researchers studying 300 skeletons of museum specimens found 23 percent showing old, healed over fractures in the bones of the chest, especially the furcula, or wishbone. It is a tough life for this hawk species.

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Another interesting summer sighting this week was a hen GRAY PARTRIDGE and her brood of at least a dozen, maybe more, young chicks following her briskly across a county gravel road. This observation happened too fast to obtain any photographs. It was there and over too quick. But this scribe knew what he saw. This medium sized game bird is a tough critter, a survivalist in and around the intense agricultural fields of the county. Originally imported from Eurasia, it is found in southern Canada grain fields in and around the prairie provinces and then south into the USA from Washington State east to Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Wisconsin.

One biological noteworthy factor of partridge is the clutch size … large. A typical nest can have 16 to 18 eggs. Nests with 22 eggs have been documented. That is a lot of eggs for a hen partridge to keep warm under a body that is only 13 inches long, having a 22-inch wingspan and tipping the scale at 14 to 18 ounces. The little partridge chicks looked like small fluff balls of downy brown feathers on two fast moving spindly legs.

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SANDHILL CRANES at Otter Creek Marsh are making themselves known. This species of crane has been nesting at this state wildlife area for over 25 years. The date was 1992 when a successful sandhill crane nest was documented. Now, in 2015, and further east along the Iowa River Wildlife Corridor all the way to Johnson County, more nests are being reported. Historically, by the year 2006, the population estimate of about 170 sandhills were in Iowa… at Otter Creek Marsh in Tama County, Sweet Marsh in Bremer County and the Green Island bottoms of Jackson County. Known nests are found today in 21 counties of Iowa.

Fossil evidence of sandhill cranes dates back to 2.5 million years ago. They have managed to adapt to the mood swings of the earth with its long periods of advancing glaciers and shorter periods of inter-glacial warm periods. Somehow through multiple episodes of ice and no ice on the landscape, the birds moved south beyond icy margins and them back north when climatic changes warmed. Back then, and even in today’s environment, sandhill cranes need marshes and wet prairie lands to find refuge, food and nesting sites.

Sandhills eat just about anything they can swallow; small rodents, frogs, insects, young birds, eggs, seeds, grass shoots, grain, bulbs,and aquatic plants. That makes a wetland complex a perfect place to call home. The Sandhill Cranes we see in Iowa are not the same population group that migrates through central Nebraska each March and April into arctic regions of Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Iowa sandhills are part of a different sub-group that winters in Georgia and Florida.

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AUGUST ROADSIDE COUNTS will soon begin. Iowa has 217 standardized routes. Each route is 30 miles long. A best early morning time to conduct this survey is after a night of heavy dew, clear skies in the morning and light wind. Pheasants, quail, doves, rabbits, partridge and other critters may move to gravel road edges in order to soak up the morning sunshine and dry off. Officers and biologists will be counting what they see, sending in the reports to upland game research biologists, who in turn can help estimate population trend lines for each species. Primary emphasis will be on counting pheasants.

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A doe white-tailed deer and her triplet fawns were observed and photographed this week. At about 7:30 p.m., she and her month-old babies walked out of the timber edge into a cut hay field. From my vantage point on a friend’s home patio, my 400 mm lens tried to capture the activities of the deer. The results were okay but not outstanding. Still, an observation was made, another journal entry made of wildlife adaptations to life in Marshall County’s forest/farm field edges. The young fawns know how to run fast. For them live is easy at the moment. Reality will set in this fall and next winter. They will have adapted by that time as their bodies make great strides toward maturity.

BUCK white-tails are gathered now in what biologists call bachelor groups. This scribe saw seven bucks in one soybean field a few days ago. Their summer hair coat of light reddish-brown hairs does not have the insulating qualities of winter hair. It is this animals adaptation to summer heat, and the ability to help dissipate excess body heat. Antler growth is not finished and what antlers they do have are still growing, covered by the velvet tissue that helps feed and deposit calcium into the bone growing out of their skulls.

Bachelor groups form during the summer outside the breeding season, when antlers are absent or newly growing buds. Part of the reason lies in protection due to lots of eyes, ears and noses to detect predators or other dangers. Only mild forms of aggression are seen between each other. Serious buck-on-buck antler clashes will come later in late October. As for now, they tolerate each other quite well at this time of year, even grooming each other. They do however establish a pecking order to best foods. But since a soybean field is all “best,” that is no factor. But as summer continues, day length gets shorter. That causes testosterone levels to begin to build slowly. By late August, testosterone will be high enough to trigger hardening of the antlers and shedding the velvet covering those antlers. Growth of antlers is over by that time. Shortened day length also means the bucks grow less tolerant of each other and bachelor groups of the summer will break apart. Bucks also begin using a larger portion of their home range as he rut approaches. Travel patterns change.

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For your funny bone this week: Animal group names can be strange. Take these for example. A group of frogs is called an army. Rhinos a crash while kangaroos are called a mob. Whale groups are called pods and geese are called a gaggle. Lots of crows is called a murder and a group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament. A group of politicians is called a nuisance!

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Garry Brandenburg is a graduate of Iowa State University with BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology. He is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. Contact him at P.O. Box 96, Albion, Iowa 50005