Drama at Sabino Creek

Denis, Darlene, and I conducted our regular IBA monitoring this morning in northeast Tucson. The recent flooding has made much of the area unrecognizable, but it has also left several shallow pools in the old pond, which had been dry for many months now.

As we scanned, a large juvenile Cooper’s Hawk flashed down onto the mud. Our first thought was that it had come in for a splash and a drink, but immediately we heard the frantic piping of a Spotted Sandpiper. The sandpiper dived into the water, barely eluding the hawk’s dangling feet, and popped up, like a feathered cork, a few feet away. This was repeated half a dozen times, the Cooper’s hovering over the water, harrier-like, and the spotty disappearing completely beneath the surface, only to re-emerge a short distance away. Finally, the accipiter (probably made nervous by our presence, sorry to say) flew up into a cottonwood and watched, while its prey fluttered into a slightly larger puddle and pumped its still-intact tail furiously.

I wonder how it all came out: hard to know who to root for!