The small size, thin legs, and squared tail all point to sharp-shinned hawk. Cooper's have bigger heads, thicker legs, and are much larger than stellar's jays.
Haven't seen the Sharp-shinned/Coopers debate at BPN for quite a while. it used to be a ring-side favourite occasionally resulting in a black eye! But I exaggerate.
Note I will carefully not make a pronouncement as I have learned to be prudent in these matters! Posted is a Sharp-shinned Hawk feeding on a starling in my back yard. Note the yellow eye which indicates a young bird. Accipiter eyes tend to go through orange to red as they age. Also note the blotchy, wide light-brown markings on the breast. Young Coopers show thin, dark brown streaks as in the OP. Oh did I just give it away?
As to size, it is a very hard metric to estimate without something to directly (i.e., side by side) compare it with. Also, many hawks show reverse sexual dimorphism with the female significantly larger than the male. With this in mind, a male Coopers may not look that much bigger than a female Sharpy.
By the way, welcome to BPN Randy. I hope you continue to post including some images!
Last edited by John Chardine; 10-11-2013 at 09:02 PM.
Reason: typo
John, this bird shows the pinched face, thin legs and the square tail with the outer tail feathers as long as the others. The streaks on the breast extend into the belly so I'll say this is a Sharpie. The two birds are shown in two different mental states, your bird is relaxed and Roberts bird looks to be more stresses or is soon to make a move. The heightened state thins the breast streaks as the feathers are held close to the body. Hey, I've been wrong before.
Looking forward to others chiming in.
Bob, the big eye, round head, heavy streaking low on the breast, skinny legs, and notched tail all say Sharp-shinned. It's a bird that was hatched this year.
John, your bird doesn't really work well for comparison here since it's in at least near adult plumage, and the breast looks fine for an adult. A close examination of the dorsal feathers might reveal it's not quite a full adult ... but then again perhaps not. The eyes do get more orange or red as they get older, but can't really be used to age them. They also vary with sex, and I believe males tend to have redder eyes. Since this beast took a Starling and looks significantly bigger than the carcass and foot, I'd suspect that your bird is a female. So this might be in its second or third winter, but most definitely not its first like Bob's bird.
Thank you John. Happy to be here and glad to know I'm not the only one who struggles with Cooper's-Sharp-shinned ID's! I'll post a pic as soon as I figure out how to resize to BPN standards on DPP.
Hi guys remember this raptors can be very hard to id. Going by this picture I think it is a sharpie mostly because of the tail and it looks extremely small .I almost never say its a sharpie because their a lot more rare and very secretive with coopers being very common Western accipiters are smaller than the eastern species and also the tiercel or male of the species are going to be about one third smaller than the female.When id raptors I almost never go by feathers or banding .In flight id always go by form is it a buteo short wing accipiter or falcon etc. Size and to a lesser degree location.Been flying raptors for over thirty years and the last coopers tiercel that I flew was about eleven ounces and this bird looks smaller .This bird is a passage or first year bird adult accipiters are going to have that slate grey color besides the eye color change.Look at redtails when it comes to feather ID of the species everyone is going to look so different. Have seen so many variations of redtails across the country from light to dark morphs . Also the juveniles wont have the red tail but never say never. Years ago trapped a juvenile that had quite of bit of red cast to the tail.Also when it comes to Id the peregrine. falcon in this country we have five sub species. And then take into consideration this was a reintroduced species and the states division of wildlife agencies so eager to repopulate .They bought anything that had peregrine in front of it never looked at the breeding So to finalise this and can be difficult to id raptors I occasionally get it wrong its always easier if the bird is in the hand and not in the Bush. LOL
ID help needed
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