Like a majority of diurnal birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere, the Cooper's hawk is a partial migrant. They tend to be most migratory in the north and largely to partially sedentary elsewhere. With individual exceptions, hawks of the species largely migrate out of nearly all of their range in southern Canada as well as cooler parts of the Pacific Northwest, essentially all of Montana and northern parts of surrounding states, the Dakotas (but for southern South Dakota), the northern parts of the Great Lake states, northern New York and much of New England. Despite being classed as sedentary, banding studies have revealed that many Cooper's hawks south of the typical migratory populations engage in some variety of seasonal winter movements. Migrants in the Florida Keys were determined via stable isotopes to have originated from mid-Atlantic states and the southeastern United States both (largely) south of the typical migratory range. While females in the urban areas of Tucson were sedentary (99%), about 6% of the females outside of the urban areas did not remain on their breeding grounds during winter. In British Columbia, many adults are non-migratory but juveniles do tend to migrate. From the Great Lakes region in particular, migrants appear to disperse in multiple directions to the south. Multi-directional movements, even to the north as well as potentially any other direction, are more common than previously thought in this and other migratory raptors, which has been previously described as “inefficient and indirect method of 'homing'”. However, reaching regions where appropriate habitat and prey is available is probably far more significant in seasonal movements to birds of prey than climatic concerns. Fairly strong evidence has been found of habitual northbound migration by Cooper's hawks from Central and Southern California, usually over fairly short distances, often less than . However, the three longest distance movements from southern California were all northbound, i.e. . Cooper's hawks originating from Northern California do generally migrate south, mostly wintering in Mexico though sometimes covering up to to Central America. In Lansing, Michigan, evidence has been found of individual Cooper's hawks being annually devoted to the same wintering grounds, presumably due to their high quality.