[Bristol-Birds] Mystery Hawk Revealed

Area Birders,
Thanks to all of you who attempted to identify the mystery hawk at
http://users.mikrotec.com/mayhorn/BIMG/HAWKP.htm.

If you decided that it was a Sharp-shinned, then you were right. The bird is an 
IMMATURE FEMALE SHARP-SHINNED. The head is smaller in relation to the body than 
a Cooper's would be. The light supercillium is more pronounced than it is on a 
Cooper's, but not as conspicuous as it would be on a Goshawk. The rufous 
auricular (facial) patch would be darker in a Cooper's. The eye has an orange 
tint instead of yellow, which means the bird's eye color is changing to that of 
an adult. The throat is light. It would be darker in a Cooper's.
The size of the hawk was what I referred to as tricky. If you imagine the 
length of the grackle including the tail under the hawk and compare the length 
of the two birds you see there is not enough of a difference between the two 
for this hawk to be a Cooper's and not an even larger Goshawk. Peterson lists a 
Common Grackle as being 11-13 1/2 in length, and a Goshawk as 20-26 inches. The 
hawk in these photos is not that large.  
The tail in the photo is a bit misleading. It probably looks longer like that 
of Cooper's because the wings are drooping and the rump is exposed. The tail 
also has the squared corners that point to a Sharp-shinned, whereas the 
Cooper's would be more rounded. The sub-terminal band on the tail is gray, not 
white, as it would be on a Cooper's, and if you look closely you can see a 
notch in the center of the tail, which is indicative of a Sharp-shinned. Also 
the rufous patch that can be seen on the wing coverts would be more pronounced 
in a Cooper's. I can't take credit for having caught all of these species 
indicators myself. Bob Riggs of Russell County lent his hawk expertise and 
pointed out some that I missed.

Fifty people responded to the ID challenge. Here are the results:

SHARP-SHINNED  20       NOR. GOSHAWK  15     COOPER'S 10     NOR. HARRIER 1     
RED-TAILED 1     MERLIN 3

Thanks again to all who took part. Maybe we all improved our birding skills by 
a bit.

Enjoy the birds,

Roger Mayhorn
Compton Mt
Buchanan County VA
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