At Caperton Swamp today - I feel pretty good about this one as
sharp-shinned. It occurred to me as very small - mourning dove sized. It
was hard to get a good look at it in flight, but the tail seems clearly
square with just a very narrow buff/white border at the tip and a small
central notch. Merlin returns sharp-shinned as the only suggestion (which
is kind of unusual). I suspect this is a case where machine learning is
probably better at analyzing the shape and proportions better than humans.
But these are for sure difficult and super confusing.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S101042229
Greg Walker
Louisville.
On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 6:55 AM Greg Walker <gregory.l.walker@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Brainard's timing is impeccable! I think Ron Hirsch and I must have been
driving toward this bird literally as Brainard was typing his message RE:
Cooper's and sharpies. It flushed from the side of the road at Goose Pond
yesterday. It was on the small side so our initial thought was that we
might have a sharp-shinned. We recorded it as Sharp-shinned/Cooper's. On
reviewing the photos last night, I *think* it's a Cooper's, but...??? Never
got a look where we could see head / wing position / tail in flight.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S100994620
Greg Walker
Louisville
On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 4:37 PM Joyce Fry <joycefry1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You are so spot on! We have a regular accipiter visitor that we have
studied up close and personal this winter. He visits the bird feeders and
sits there for extended periods of time. We decided on Cooper’s, but I
still wonder if it’s a sharpie.
What’s your assessment?
On Jan 18, 2022, at 2:01 PM, brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:1/15/2022 there were the following number of reports of small to
I was looking at eBird yesterday. During the period 12/01/2021 to
medium-sized Accipiters in Kentucky:
that we typically have in Kentucky for my entire birding career (soon to be
Sharp-shinned: 75
Cooper's: circa 300
Sharp-shinned/Cooper's: *9* (3 of those are mine)
I have struggled with differentiating the two species of Accipiters
50 years). This difficulty has often involved birds that I've seen pretty
well, let alone the looks that we most often get of these raptors. And I
know if I'm missing a decent number of them, most everyone else is, too.
enter "Sharp-shinned Hawk/Cooper's Hawk" on your lists. Doing so would
This is just a pitch to not be embarrassed or otherwise too proud to
probably raise the credibility of eBird data substantively.
bpb, Louisville
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