13 Cooper’s Hawks
An Art Benefit Sale
Featuring art of the 2026 Chateau Psycho graduates. Originals, prints, greeting cards, and ephemera. (and some special bonuses for purchasers!)
Every piece in this art sale goes directly toward the cost of raising and continuing to raise 13 Cooper’s hawks. This includes quail, medicine, kennels, feathers regrown, second chances given. This season alone ran $1,963.12 for thirteen hawks, and there will be another thirteen next year.
The Story
I don’t think I knew exactly what I was getting into when I suggested I be added to Bear Paw Ranch’s permit to help raise Cooper’s Hawks. I knew going in how difficult they are in rehab. I’ve yet to meet a rehabber excited to get in a nestling Cooper’s hawk. They are, however, a favorite of mine.
I started working with raptors at the UC Davis Raptor Center in 1990 where I first learned to do raptor rehabilitation. I got my falconry license in 1996 and worked as a trainer and presenter then as a consultant in free flight bird shows from 1997 until 2010. I’ve raised quite a few raptors over the years including Cooper’s hawks. With my mentor and bestie Nicole Perretta, who’d done this work herself, in my corner, I jumped with a whole heart, feet first and a little bit out of mind. Just like a Cooper’s hawk.
Thirteen of them came through my hands this season, each with their own health challenges and stories, all with a tremendous appetite for quail. You don’t truly understand how much raptor rehabilitators spend on food until it’s coming out of your own pocket. How does a tiny hawk eat SO MUCH?? Then there’s meds and other products for supportive care.
$97.37
Cost Per hawk (Consumables Only)
2026 Consumables
| Item | Cost |
| Quail (300 × $2.80) | $840.00 |
| Quail (additional) | $100.00 |
| Electrolyte solution | $16.94 |
| B12 | $10.44 |
| Nutrical | $15.29 |
| Critical Care Carnivore | $13.99 |
| Proticide (frounce treatment) | $49.20 |
| Broken window repair (Arnold) | $220.00 |
Total Consumables |
$1,265.86 |
Did you know that 45% of Cooper’s hawk deaths in their first year are caused by manmade objects like cars and windows? It’s true. I have proof. Thanks, Arnold. I’m glad you’re okay, but dang.
$151.01
Cost per hawk (all inclusive)
Reusable / Durable Equipment (one-time investment)
| Item | Cost |
| Kennel | $29.99 |
| Kennel | $21.99 |
| Kennel | $23.99 |
| Kennel | $33.99 |
| Kennel | $52.47 |
| Crate | $34.99 |
| Pop up tent | $107.74 |
| Pop up chair tent | $46.99 |
| Gloves | $21.54 |
| Light | $23.69 |
| Bowls | $10.76 |
| Home Depot (feeding stations, perches, nest bowls) | $260.13 |
| Cloth diapers (bedding) | $9.00 |
| Bar mops (bedding) | $19.99 |
| Total Reusable | $697.26 |
Every hawk this season is named for a Hey Arnold character, because I thought one of the hawks had eyebrows like Helga in the series and just ran with it. They started being called by their band color and number and I only named them once they were out of my hands. Six of them are now out of my hands.
These Cooper’s haws have been released and are loose in the neighborhood at hack. They benefit from a feeding station that they definitely take advantage of, but they do so less and less. They are quickly evolving from a gaggle of derpy naive teens into sleek steely-eyed predators, peeling off one by one to find their own territory to terrorize.
Not every story ends the way you want it to, and I won’t pretend otherwise. One hawk who couldn’t fly went in for X-rays and did not come out of the procedure. It was sad but it wasn’t surprising. Stress and capture myopathy is a true challenge with many wild animals. Cooper’s hawks are especially sensitive. Another lost the sight in one eye and developed neurological symptoms from West Nile Virus, and the kindest thing left to do for him was to let him go. And a chick, only eight days old, likely injured internally in a fall from the nest, held on for two more days before he couldn’t hold on any longer. This is the other cost to wildlife rehab beyond the monetary one. You can’t save them all nor should you.
It’s not over yet though! Three more are still in pre-release holding, “Chateau Psycho,” growing back the flight feathers they dropped due to West Nile Virus: Red 19, Featherless, and Red 35. And one, Purple 99, is still inside, growing fast and slated soon for pre-release. And the hooligans flying around the neighborhood still stop in for breakfast.
I hope you will consider supporting them and alleviating the ongoing expense by buying some of my art!
(1) Blue 22 “Arnold” – (2) Blue 11 “Helga” – (3) Blue 09 “Olga” – (4) Red 54 “Phoebe”
Not pictured: Yellow 25 “Harold” – Blue 10 “Lila”
Don’t they all look so sweet!!! — They’re not.
Harold turned around and tried to foot me in the face when I released him. Then Harold jumped Arnold at the feeding station and poor sweet Arnold flew straight into my kitchen window and shattered it. He recovered fine, but Harold is a menace. Phoebe, meanwhile, tried and failed to catch the birds in my aviary, then simply reached into the mews and stole food from my goshawk, Flanders, instead. Fortunately, she finally discovered the food station shortly thereafter.
And still, for every window strike and stolen meal, there is the old dead snag in my yard where they all congregated to watch me and the dogs doing evening chores and patrol while they squee in judgement. They bathe in the tortoise’s water pan. They make half-hearted flights at Eurasian collared doves and mug each other for food. They are a delight to watch evolve.
And once the crates are packed away, Chateau Psycho has been taken down, and the whole lot of them has migrated, I imagine I’ll be looking forward to doing it all over again. — But only if I can afford it.
Please visit my art sale. Buy a little something! Every dollar helps. And if somehow the proceeds exceed my costs, the rest will go to Bear Paw Ranch to support the rest of the raptors.