2 Texas raptors (1 Viewer)

[archilochus]

Upper Texas coast - just northwest of Houston.

This bird explains the pile of feathers I found last week in the back yard. It keeps coming back. The other day as I was looking out the window I saw it swoop down at a bunch of sparrows. It missed. I'm not good with raptors so I'm not sure what this is. The picket in the fence is 6" wide.

This is another raptor that has been around. Even though it looks bigger in the picture, it was actually a little smaller that the 1st bird. Again, the picket is 6" wide.

At the risk of embarassing myself, my guess on the first bird is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. I don't have a guess on the second one.

 

[Dave B Smith]

Hello archilochus,
I see this is your first post, so on behalf of the staff welcome to the Birdforum. And your photos present a very common problem - distinguishing between Cooper's Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk. Size is a great way to tell them apart, another way is a good view of the tail (while not 100% diagnostic it helps a lot). The Cooper's Hawk is the larger of the two - about 16" vs 11" for Sharp-shinned. Juvenile birds of both species have vertical streaking on the breast / belly (your first photo) and adults have horizontal barring in this same area (your second photo).

So I'd say if the first is considerably larger, your guess of Cooper's is correct and that would make the second a Sharp-shinned, but I could be wrong. Hopefully one of our accipitor experts will give some better explanations.

 

[archilochus]

Thanks, Dave.

I thought that the second picture most resembled the Northern Goshawk in Sibley, but the head color is wrong (no white supercilium), my bird is much, much too small, and way too far south.

 

[jason stannage]

Upper Texas coast - just northwest of Houston.

This bird explains the pile of feathers I found last week in the back yard. It keeps coming back. The other day as I was looking out the window I saw it swoop down at a bunch of sparrows. It missed. I'm not good with raptors so I'm not sure what this is. The picket in the fence is 6" wide.

This is another raptor that has been around. Even though it looks bigger in the picture, it was actually a little smaller that the 1st bird. Again, the picket is 6" wide.

At the risk of embarassing myself, my guess on the first bird is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. I don't have a guess on the second one.

pic 1 juv coopers hawk ( female )
pic 2 juv sharp shinned hawk ( male )

 

[B Lagopus]

pic 1 juv coopers hawk ( female )
pic 2 juv sharp shinned hawk ( male )

Picture two is likely a subadult female sharp-shinned hawk, Accipiter striatus velox.

Note the size. Eleven inches, as mentioned by Dave, is an average, the birds are sexually dimorphic, with males smaller and females larger. If we look at the bird compared to the fence, and include the tail, the bird would be 12 inches or more, so female.

Also consider the palish eye in combination with near adult plumage. Such a pale eye with that plumage tells us it is likely a female subadult, a full adult or male subadult would likely have darker iris. Also note the touch of brown coloration on wing coverts, confirming the age, and thereby helping to confirm gender.

 

[jason stannage]

Picture two is likely a subadult female sharp-shinned hawk, Accipiter striatus velox.

Note the size. Eleven inches, as mentioned by Dave, is an average, the birds are sexually dimorphic, with males smaller and females larger. If we look at the bird compared to the fence, and include the tail, the bird would be 12 inches or more, so female.

Also consider the palish eye in combination with near adult plumage. Such a pale eye with that plumage tells us it is likely a female subadult, a full adult or male subadult would likely have darker iris. Also note the touch of brown coloration on wing coverts, confirming the age, and thereby helping to confirm gender.
hi,
the bird in the pic seems to have a reddish eyes, and the breast pattern seems diffrent, is this common in subadult females, Also note the touch of brown coloration on wing coverts is this common with juv bird of both sexes, as for the size, . ps when i first saw the bird i to thought female does look larger.

 

[wings]

First one is a Coopers. Not sure about the second.

 

[archilochus]

Thanks, all. At least my initial identification of the 1st seems to be agreed to by all - Cooper's Hawk (juv). Given the size of the second, I'll go with Sharp-shinned Hawk. I'm not to the point that I want to quibble about gender.