Sharp-shinned Hawk(I Think)

[Joe Senzatimore]

Not 100% sure of the ID , so if someone knows for sure , please let me know. Taken yesterday at a local park. A few hawks and merlin around harrasing the little migrants.
Wish I had better light , but this one was too co-operative to pass up.

800ISO F8 at 1/1000th
Plus 1&1/3(dark bird,light sky)
D3s on 600f4 with 1.4 TC

[David Salem]

Joe, looks like a nice shot of a juvenile male coopers hawk. The head and beak look to large for a female sharpie and a great ID shot is the short outer tail feather that makes it easy to ID in flight. Coopers have what appears to be a more rounded tail and sharpies a more squarish in flight. There is a post this week of a female sharpie, look at its head and beak. Hope this helps. The shot is very nice and the back stare is very appealing. Exposed well and sharp. Wish for a nicer BG. Maybe a little more saturation. Good Job.

[dankearl]

I like the look back pose and nice details,
Sort of a difficult crop, a bit too centered but the HA makes it difficult to move, so I can see why you cropped as you did,
but I might move it a bit left.

[gail bisson]

Excellent IQ.
Would add a touch of saturation and move bird to the right or crop about 5% off the right.
Gail

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely capture and head turn on this one. A bit too centered for me. Agree on moving to the right a tad and a slight boost in SAT.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the look back pose, sharpness and details. Well done Joe.

[Don Nelson]

Nice pose with good look-back. Head seems a little soft to me, even in repost (was your focus point on the back/shoulder area?)
recropped to move to right, slightly saturated the bird, slightly saturated the head in yellows, ran Nik Detail extractor 50% with Tonal contrast 20% and to me it looks a little better. Your results will be better masked, etc, when you start with a larger raw. Here's a suggested version - you'll have to fine tune the look on your copy if you wish:

[arash_hazeghi]

sweet! I like Don's repost

[Karl Egressy]

Nice looking back pose. The repost is a great improvement, Joe.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This definitely needed more saturation, and the repost addresses that nicely. I was OK with the left-right placement of the subject but think it is too high in the frame. Great sighting way out in the open like that!!

[Joe Senzatimore]

David,
Thanks for the ID help.