On May 8th I spotted a late Sharp-shinned Hawk being attacked by a much larger Cooper's Hawk. I don't often get to see these birds together. They are quite similar. Females are quite a bit larger than males. The large female Cooper's is biggest, bigger than a crow. Next, the male Cooper's and female Sharp-shinned are very similar in size, somewhat the size of a pigeon. The male Sharp-shinned is the smallest--jay-sized. And the typically solo bird can be hard to estimate as to size, so misidentification, or lack of specific identification, is frequent among even experienced birders.
The tail of the Cooper's Hawk is rounded, while the Sharp-shinned Hawk has a square tip.
In relaxed flight or gliding, the Cooper's Hawks hold their wings out rather straight, with the head and neck projecting far in front of the straight leading edge of the wing--like a large flying cross. Contrariwise, the Sharp-shinned Hawk holds its wings forward at the wrist. The wrists then project forward nearly as far as the head on a short neck.
In the (not-very-good) chase photo below the Cooper's Hawk is flapping rapidly and has its wings extended forward, but the Sharp-shinned Hawk has the typical flight profile.
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| Female Cooper's Hawk attacking male Sharp-shinned Hawk. Escondido, California. May 8, 2016. Greg Gillson. |
At any rate, when reporting a Sharp-shinned Hawk this late in the spring in southern California, it is very helpful to have a photograph for proof--especially a comparative shot like this!
I love your blog, because I love identifying birds that visit me in the city, and I rarely get birds of prey, but today I think I got a visit from a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk, that landed on my downtown apartment balcony, that appeared to be looking down for some lunch. It then fluttered upwards from my balcony in an almost stationary straight up vertical fashion and was then out of sight. So I then dashed outside to see if I could see where it went. So I am looking around, and just when I was going to go back inside, suddenly there’s this loud wing flapping noise right above (startled me actually) and I look up and see this little raptor bird perched right on the edge of the roof of the building's overhang, literally less than 6 feet above me starting right down at me. It was crazy. And we had good 10 second gaze with each other. And it had such a curious expressive look, that I almost felt like this bird wanted to ask me a question. I then decided to ask it a question, and softly asked, "Are you a falcon? What are you?" while trying to just make a mental picture of it since I knew there's no way this bird was going to like, as I knew it was not likely going to stay there very long. And it then inevitably flew off, and I watched it as it flew away, studying it’s underbelly and tail feathers/wings, and made a mental note of what it looked like. It had very distinctive grey and white horizontal bands on tail feathers slightly in a fan shape but very clearly distinct light gray and white bands. It had a compact body, kinda like a little falcon as its head was smaller, and then it's head had a similar gray color as the gray on it's tail band feathers which then was same color down the back of its head and wings and back. It's tummy was white and slightly spackly. NOT horizontal squiggly like an adult and not as brownish as many photos of full grown adults show, as though it was transitioning from the more darker spotted-ish to that. It had a very expressive look on its face, with enormous yellow eyes, or seemed enormous for the size of its head. I stared right into them for a good 10 seconds or so, so that I know for sure. And if it didn't have those bright yellow eyes, or got such a good look at them, I might have thought it was a falcon, as it looked like a falcon but had these rich golden yellow eyes. Anyways, as soon as it flew off, I then immediately went inside and pulled out my bird identification book and it seemed like it fit everything for an older juvenile sharp-shinned hawk. I then go online to look for more photos and although I still was pretty sure that's what it was, there's a bunch of articles all saying it's virtually impossible to tell this them apart from Cooper's hawk. But in all the photos of the Cooper's hawks, they look like they have scruffy feathers almost crest-like fanning off the back of its head and more like a cap and a coat, as opposed to a hood, and this bird was small, maybe no bigger than a crow, but now I don't know though. And I also then read that sharp-shinned hawks are not as common in winter in San Diego, but I feel like what I saw. So is this a rare bird at this time of year? Would the description I gave sound like it could be something other than a sharp shinned hawk?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your hawk sighting, Ellejay. How exciting!
DeleteIt definitely sounds like an immature Cooper's or Sharp-shinned. Good job getting to that identification.
"Maybe no bigger than a crow" makes me think it's a Cooper's Hawk, as Sharp-shinned is more jay-sized. And Cooper's Hawks are very common year-round residents in San Diego.
However, you didn't see anything specifically to tell which of the two it may have been.
Keep looking. It may be back!