At Phys.org, Justin Jackson reports,

A University of Tennessee researcher documented an immature Cooper’s hawk using vehicle traffic and pedestrian signal patterns as concealment during hunting behavior at a suburban intersection. Perched near idling cars during long red lights, the hawk launched its approach only after auditory pedestrian signals predicted an extended signal phase, resulting in a longer queue of vehicles.

“Street smarts: Cooper’s hawk uses pedestrian crossing signal to ambush urban prey,” May 26, 2025

Watching from a parked car in West Orange, New Jersey, the researcher noted that the young hawk was hunting sparrows, starlings, etc., that gathered to feast on bread crumbs provided by the occupant(s) of house #2:

Six attacks unfolded only when the pedestrian cue sounded, signaling a longer redlight, a window amounting to 3.75% of observation time. Probability estimates confirmed the timing as statistically unlikely to be chance (P ≈ 0.000053). Adding to the improbability of chance, the hawk was never observed hunting on weekends when traffic was light.

The hawk always approached from the same position and direction, beginning from a perch near house #1, appearing when the walk sign began to chime. Once cars stretched to house #8 on the block, the raptor would descend, skimming just a few feet along the southern sidewalk, with the line of cars blocking the view between predator and prey. ( Ambush urban prey” )

From the open-access paper:

The observed 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.

Vladimir Dinets, Street smarts: a remarkable adaptation in a city-wintering raptor, Frontiers in Ethology (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fetho.2025.1539103

But how smart does the hawk have to be to do this?

Not to disparage the hawk’s intelligence, but traffic signals programmed by humans are a real advantage to the him; they are designed to be very regular. He doesn’t “know” that the city is different from the countryside; he is not a connoisseur of landscapes.

H would likely face many more serious challenges if he stayed in the countryside where the signals he gets might not be nearly so certain.

What the hawk knows for sure is that the area around the intersection features many slow urban birds used to fattening themselves up on bread crumbs. They may not be nearly as wary as their more hard-pressed country cousins. So the intersection is a good place for him to perch, keeping a hawk’s eye on the traffic signals. The rest of his repertoire is, of course, the natural way a hawk would hunt.

Further study might very well show that urban environments created by humans bring out many unexpected adaptations in other life forms, taking advantage of the regularity that humans build into our environments.