Cooper's Hawk vs Sharp-Shinned Hawk - Bird Identification

Описание: How to identify Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks...The difference between these two hawks can be difficult determine, but here are a few tips that I used to determine what type of hawk I found beyond your backyard that may help. While they both, as adults, have slate grey feathers on their back and white and reddish-brown barred feathers on the chest, Cooper’s hawks are about the size of a crow and sharp-shinned hawks are the size of a blue jay, but unless you see them together or have a definitive reference, it can be difficult to determine by this alone. There are a few distinguishing features that you can use to help identify either accipiter, but even one of these alone is not always enough for a positive identification because not every bird will conform to these characteristics at every moment, therefore it is best to use multiple points of reference before you positively id said bird.

It is possible to identify them on the wing, but the best way is to see them perched to better get a close look at the following features: the tail, the head and the nape of the neck. Cooper’s hawks have a rounded off tail, squared crown and lighter coloring on the nape of their neck, while sharp-shinned hawks have a flat tail, round head and unbroken slate grey coloring on the nape of their neck. A few other minor determining features not mentioned in this video are the eyes which are closer to the beak on the sharp-shinned hawk, a white stripe above their brow and their pencil thing legs which give them their name.

Identifying juveniles may be easier than identifying adults, but again can sometimes be confusing. While both hawks have brown feathers on their back and white chest, the sharp-shinned hawk usually have heavy reddish-brown streaks, or vertical stripes, rather than the horizontal bars of adults and Cooper’s hawk has thin, brown to dark-brown vertical stripes across their white chest, which tend to fade as they go down. While exploring the swamps and forests just beyond my backyard, I came across an adult and juvenile hawk while doing wildlife photography and using these tips have tentatively determined that they were both Cooper’s hawks. What’s in your backyard?

Sharp-shinned hawk photos courtesy of:
"216 - SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (3-19-08) juv, canet rd, sloco, ca (1)" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0
"216 - SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (11-30-08) canet rd, slo, ca (1)" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0