Wednesday, January 21, 2015

What Is It?

Sharp-shinned Hawk

I ran into the same conundrum that my friend Julie Zickefoose had which she reported in her recent blog. Was the hawk we saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk or a Cooper's Hawk?

Sharp-shinned Hawk

When I first saw the small hawk flyby and land in a nearby tree, I first thought it may be a kestrel since it was so small probably dove size. When we were able to approach it closer and started obtaining photographs, I thought of a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Arriving at home, when I downloaded my pictures and my son downloaded his pictures and we continued to go back and forth on which hawk, it was. My sons thought it was a Cooper's but I still was not sure. So to help with the identification. I sent copies of some of the pictures to my birding buddy who felt that it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Here is a link to describe the differences http://feederwatch.org/learn/tricky-bird-ids/coopers-hawk-and-sharp-shinned-hawk/