Hello All

I got some pretty cool pics of a Sharp-Shinned or possibly an immature Red-Tailed? Here are 3 pics...

Busy preening...

Hmmmmmm...I think it was telling me..."See?...All Gone!"

Think it saw me taking a pic?




Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Nice shots Susan,

Always a tuff call between Sharpies and Cooper's when just looking at photos. But I'd say a juvi Cooper's.

Kenn

Kenn & Temple
New 2009 Gallery

Difficult angle to work with, but clearly not Red-tailed (no belly band is the big clue for that one) - based on size relative to the fence, I'd go with Cooper's over Sharp-shinned as well.

Jill

Benton, ME
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon EF70-300 F4-5.6 IS USM

Hello Ken and Jill,

Well, here's another head shot/angle...
I know it's not a Cooper's...that one is much smaller and has redish eyes...
I don't know about the belly band...so maybe it's a Sharp-Shinned...
Since I had an ID on a immature Red-Tailed not too long ago, it looks very similar to that one too...


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Susan, the Sharp-shinned is the smaller of the two species. The larger is the Cooper's, which is what this is. Note the proportionately large head, which is also a feature of the Cooper's. The red eyes vs. yellow eyes in both species is a sign of maturity - the juveniles have yellow eyes and the adults have red eyes (although eye color may change at a different rate than plumage, leading to mismatches in some individuals).

Immature red-tails look very different than this fellow - they do not have the fine reddish streaking across the entire breast, but instead have more of a band of brown streaking across the lower part of the chest - the "belly band" that is a diagnostic feature (for eastern red-tails, at least).

Jill

Benton, ME
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon EF70-300 F4-5.6 IS USM

Hello Jill,

Hmmmmmmmmm...now I'm scratching my head...I'm more confused now than ever...Good Grief! LOL
From all my pics in books I'm referred to is that the Cooper's Hawk has the "crew cut" (for lack of a better way of putting it) of darker feathers along the top of it's head and along through to above the eyes. That has been what has been helping me distinguish the Cooper's from the Sharp-Shinned here. There are 2 ID books/field guides that I use. Sometimes the pics in them are terrible, but I do get most of the birds ID'd properly...

I'm using the "Peterson's Guide to Backyard Birds" by Roger Tory Peterson and the "Birds of Nebraska Field Guide" by Stan Tekiela.

Here's the thread I made of a Cooper's Hawk here the beginning of December last year...2 months ago.
http://tinyurl.com/ahdrr6

Here's an additional pic of the very same Cooper's Hawk. To me, this Cooper's Hawk looks a lot smaller than the other Hawk pics I'm trying to ID...inspite of the distance is further away with the Cooper's pic as well. I've sat here for over an hour comparing so many pics...and from other sites as well. But, I still keep going back to the "Crew Cut" of darker feathers in comparing the Cooper's and the Sharp Shinned to ID them from each other.


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Susan, the guides you are using are really not great for anything beyond beginning identification - I would strongly recommend you pick up either David Sibley's guide or the National Geographic guide to use as your everyday guide. From there, you will undoubtedly find yourself branching out to more and more specific guides as you go on - we're up to using about 20' feet of shelf for our guides

With respect to strong contrast between the top of the head color and the back, yes, that is a feature most often associated with Cooper's Hawks. It is not an absolute by any means, though. One of the most important things to do with any attempt to separate these two species is to look at as many field marks as possible, and use the majority to make the identification, rather than relying on one feature. There is often overlap in the features, and by using several, you can be much more confident of your identification.

There is also some overlap in size between the two species (in perceived size, if not in actual size). Small male Cooper's Hawks are roughly the same size as large female Sharp-shinned.

Key features to look at when trying to distinguish between Cooper's and Sharp-shinned (in no particular order) are:

- size (Sharp-shinned generally being smaller)
- head size and shape (Cooper's appearing larger than Sharp-shinned, which seems to have a very small head, proportionately)
- tail length (proportionately shorter in Sharp-shinned)
- tail shape (that of the sharpie looks squared off; the outer feathers of a Cooper's are slightly rounded)
- eyebrow (more often present in sharpies)
- leg thickness (sharpies have more slender legs)
- tail band (there is a broader white terminal band in Cooper's hawks)

These two birds take a lot of practice to reliably distinguish, and sometimes, you just don't have enough information to be certain. I am fairly confident that the immature bird in this thread is a Cooper's based on head size and shape, as well as overall size; seeing the tail would really let us nail down the identification.

Jill

Benton, ME
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon EF70-300 F4-5.6 IS USM

Jill,

Thanks for your guidance. I took notes of everything from your last post. I'll also be aware to hopefully take pics of the hawks' backsides/tails from now on...LOL...if they let me. Seriously though, I'll make sure to try and get their tails too

Thank you!
Susan

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Jill,
I just found a pic of the "red-eyed" hawk with it's rounded tail...BRB...have to download it from photobucket...


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Jill,

Here's the backside of the same hawk with the crew cut and the red eyes...also, although the pic is dark from the hawk's tail being in the shade, the end of the tail is still visably rounded...
So then the red-eyed one from the other thread, with the added pic and (this one...same bird) is a Cooper's?
Basing it on all your info?


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

I think it's a Juvenile Coopers.

Alan~S Cal

Your adult bird also appears to be a Cooper's, possibly a male, while the larger immature bird, also a Cooper's, could be a female. I would say that they are both Cooper's, despite the variation in size.

Jill

Benton, ME
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon EF70-300 F4-5.6 IS USM

Susan Louise,

Jill included a great deal of good information in her post (more than I would have even thought to mention, probably!) but here are a couple of other things to keep in mind.

First, young accipiters (that is, hawks in the Cooper's/Sharp-shinned/Goshawk group) can look radically different from their adult counterparts. The steely blue-gray on the back of a Cooper's or Sharp-shinned adult is preceded by a much browner immature plumage, and the reddish barring of the adults replaces a much more vertical brownish streaking they have as young birds.

Second, accipiters exhibit what is termed, in big words "reverse sexual dimorphism". In plain words, females are bigger than males, the reverse of what we often expect in the animal world. So in range of size, a female Cooper's will usually be bigger than a male Sharp-shinned, and a female Sharp-shinned will usually be bigger than a male Sharp-shinned. However, aside from exceptions to these general rule, you have the issue that a male Cooper's may be close in size to a female Sharp-shinned - which is why those other features are important.

And yes, young birds of both species have yellow eyes, which become red as they get older. So there's nothing in your photo to rule out a young accipiter like a Cooper's.

One of the reasons people recommend a field guide like the Sibley's (which comes in smaller Eastern and Western sections, as well as in a larger "one for the entire country" version) is that it shows many of these variations in plumage based on sex, age, etc. Sadly, many otherwise good introductory books on birds show only a single picture (or maybe two) of each species, which may leave out considerable variation.

Kevin Morgan
Baton Rouge, LA

Your bird is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk

The profile holds the answer:





Above pics are of juvenile birds




Mike

Central NJ/Raritan Bay/Sandy Hook