More so than breeding habitat, wintering habitat seems to be highly opportunistic. They may be found in any environment with some trees, including open woods, parkland and scrub areas. In Central America, wintering Cooper's hawks have been recorded in unusual habitats such as stunted cloud forest and treeless montane grassland. In most parts of the range, Cooper's hawks have shown to be somewhat adaptive to all gradients of human development, including urbanized areas and can even nests in many cities. They were once thought to be averse to cities and towns, but are now fairly common urban and suburban birds even when nesting. The species may even making use of isolated trees in suburbs, industrial parks and strip and shopping malls though large urban parks and other available wooded habitat is usually preferred in such areas when nesting. The cities provide plenty of prey species such as pigeons and doves and invasive species of bird for the Cooper's hawk to prey on. Evidence from a well-studied population in the city of Tucson, Arizona shows that Cooper's hawks are now considerably more common within the city than elsewhere in the surrounding regions. Despite the success of Cooper's hawks in Tucson, attempts to find breeding activity in Phoenix and Casa Grande were unsuccessful, it is thought that the ambient temperature was too high or beyond thermal tolerance levels. Although more adaptable in habitat than the sharp-shinned hawk, studies from Pennsylvania have indicated that the species still more often than not prefers sizeable tracts of woodland for breeding and migrating to fragmented, developed areas. Similarly, in Tennessee, it was found for wintering Cooper's hawks that forested areas were 73% of the habitats used, which is far more prevalent than woodland available in the environs (with only 46% remaining wooded).