Well,
yesterday's birding went well enough that my daughter wanted to go out again this afternoon to try using the Nikon D5100 DSLR camera she got of Christmas. We hopped into the Tacoma for the second day in a row and barely made it out of the driveway when my raptor radar went off. I caught a quick view of the back side of an accipiter perched in my neighbor's backyard tree as we passed his home. Based on the shape I suspected a Sharp-shinned Hawk, North America's smallest hawk. The thought of simply passing on an opportunity to get a close view of a raptor was way too painful so I pulled over and captured a few images. My daughter was getting used to the "spot and stop" mode of driving that takes over when a birder is behind the steering wheel. Getting a close look at a Sharp-shinned Hawk right in 'da hood was a great way to end another year of birding.
I've posted the images below to show various angle's of the bird's head. Rufous barring on the chest and belly, orange/red eyes, and gray crown and back clearly made it an adult bird. I wanted the sun behind me so I captured only front views. You can see typical traits that separate the Sharp-shinned from the Cooper's Hawk. The Sharpie shows a high-centered, barrel chest, small/short head relative to the body size (beware that Cooper's sometimes slump and look short-headed), the dark nape (back of neck) as opposed to a pale nape for a Cooper's Hawk, and the outer tail feathers being about equal in length to the central tail feathers as opposed to shorter outer tail feathers with longer central tail feathers for a Cooper's. The white terminal band on the tail feathers is also very narrow on Sharpies compared to more of a prominent white band for Cooper's. If I had to guess I'd call it a male based on the size being about 10-11 inches, the small end of the scale for an accipiter. Females can be several inches larger than males. It also lacks the rounded outer tail feathers often seen on female Sharp-shinned Hawks.
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| Adult Sharp-shinned Hawk Pleasant Grove, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper) |
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| Adult Sharp-shinned Hawk Pleasant Grove, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper) |
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| Adult Sharp-shinned Hawk Pleasant Grove, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper) |
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| Adult Sharp-shinned Hawk Pleasant Grove, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper) |
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| Adult Sharp-shinned Hawk Pleasant Grove, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper) |
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