During the summer of 1822, John James Audubon was observing Carolina parakeets near St. Francisville, Louisiana, until a hawk bolted by him in the direction of a nearby barnyard: “Its wings struck with extraordinary rapidity, and its tail appeared as if closed.” Audubon followed the hawk to the barnyard in which a rooster could be heard crowing. Audubon found “The Hawk grappled to the body of the Cock, both tumbling over and over.” As soon as the hawk spotted Audubon approaching, the hawk released the rooster and took flight. With a single shot, Audubon brought the bird back down.
Audubon kept the bird for his drawing of the female Stanley Hawk in the first edition of Birds of America. Audubon named the Stanley Hawk in honor of Lord Stanley, the 14th Earl of Derby (1799-1869). Audubon later added a male for the drawing. Audubon then dropped the Stanley Hawk altogether from the later octavo edition and re-identified the bird that Charles Bonaparte (1803-1857) first identified for science as the Cooper’s hawk. Instead of barnyards full of roosters, hens, and other fowl, the Cooper’s hawk is now notorious for its “daring exploits” pursuing cardinals, doves, chickadees and other birds that are attracted to backyard bird feeders, parks, and suburban landscapes.