Birding blog: 11-17-19 adult male Cooper's hawk at dawn this morning.
He had just greeted me by skimming low over my head...twice, then landed on the wall behind me. Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

The much larger female Cooper's hawks greet me in a scarier manner..flying straight at my head, then peeling off at the last moment to puff compressed air in my face.

I see the Cooper hawks doing this family greeting to each other as well, diving at each other and tumbling in the air.

Today this male hawk first fought off another male who tried to greet me at the same time, which puzzled me...one of the juveniles? I didn't get photos, so don't know who the other hawk was.

The adult hawk pictured perched on the wall was hunting quail, and soon took off after one, and it fled, screaming around the side of the hill. Two days ago I saw him attack a Say's phoebe in midair.

But yesterday the same thing happened-except it was a huge female Cooper's hawk (three-foot wingspan) who tried to greet me at the same time as the male hawk.

Pretty scary when TWO enormous birds suddenly start flying straight at my head, getting bigger every second. I braced myself and prepared my camera, although I knew the lens can't focus on something coming straight at it.

Plus, the birds were huge, and too close for my 400mm zoom lens to work.

I don't know if the male was blocking his much larger mate from greeting me at the same time he did, or just playing around.

Just before the two hawks reached me, the male veered off and launched himself into her and they battled in the air for awhile until she gave up and flew away.