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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ethol.
Sec. Behavioral Development and Play
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fetho.2025.1539103
Street smarts: a remarkable adaptation in a city-wintering raptor
Provisionally accepted- The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, United States
An immature Cooper's hawk (Accipiter cooperi) was observed hunting birds near a road intersection using queues of cars waiting for green light as cover. The queues grew sufficiently long only when pedestrian crossing regime was activated at the streetlight. The hawk apparently learned to prepare for attack when sound signals indicated the activation of pedestrian crossing regime. This behavior required having a mental map of the area and understanding the connection between the sound signals and the change in traffic pattern -a remarkable intellectual feat for a young bird that likely had just moved into the city. Such level of understanding and use of human traffic patterns by a wild animal has never been reported before.
Keywords: Accipiter cooperi, Complex behavior, Cooper's hawk, mental map, predation, raptor, traffic
Received: 03 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dinets. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Vladimir Dinets, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, United States
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