Name that Raptor

[Tom Rankin]

Laurie shot this little guy near Rangeley, Maine last week. He was the size of a large crow. He was very cooperative, letting us get very close (40 feet or so) in the car to shoot these pics.

Does anyone know what it is?

http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/m25.JPG - Name that Raptor!
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/m26.JPG - One more time!
http://viewsandbrews.com/temp/m27.JPG - Just gotta love him!

 

[David Metsky]

Tyrone

-dave-

 

[pudgy_groundhog]

sharp shinned hawk? When we were in Maine last week we had some fantastic looks at three raptors soaring around Double Top summit and my best guess was sharp shinned hawk. This guy looks kind of similar. But I could be way off base. Will have to check back in because I'm sure somebody here will be able to positively ID him.

 

[David Metsky]

Red-tailed Hawk - The WhatBird.com site is quite good. I'm just using Red-tailed as an example, not sure which yours is.

-dave-

But I still like Tyrone.

 

[Tom Rankin]

I asked 2 bird experts and they came up with Cooper's Hawk, one saying female, the other an immature. But both experts agreed that the 2 are very hard to distinguish this time of year.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

I believe your two experts are both correct. Probably immature, female Cooper's Hawk. They are very similar to Sharp-shinned Hawks, and there are some comparisons of both here, with the immature at the bottom of the page.

Whichever hawk, I think Tyrone is probably a Tyra. And she already knows how to model very well.

 

[Grumpy]

Based on your "crow size" description, a juvenile Cooper's Hawk seems like a good guess, according to my Sibley bird book. Looking at the Sibley illustrations, however, coloration and pattern on the breast make me think more in the direction of the smaller Sharp-Shinned hawk (juvenile).

What kind of habitat were you in/near when you photographed the bird?

G.

 

[Tom Rankin]

What kind of habitat were you in/near when you photographed the bird?

Crow might be just a tad too big. But definitely bigger than a Blue Jay. We were driving on a 2 lane road, with a overgrown field on the side. It's what Maine does around power lines. The rock was about 40 feet from the road, just above brush line.

 

[Puck]

Sharpies are described as robin sized. The marking on the coops and sharpies are similar. One good keynot is the tail. Sharpies have a squared off tail wheras the coopers are a rounded. I vote for juv coopers.

 

[Kevin Judy and Emma]

Coopers vs. Sharpies

I go with the Coopers, too. Sharpies tend to be slightly smaller with gray feathers and blood red eyes. (Not blood shot.) The feather patterns on the breast are quite similar, though, so easy to confuse, especially when in flight. Also, note the rounded tail. Great shots!

KDT

 

[forestgnome]

Tom, I like the first shot. If it is cropped, could you leave a little more room around the hawk's head (top and left side)?

Dave, thanks for the great site, just bookmarked it.

Happy Trails

 

[Tom Rankin]

Tom, I like the first shot. If it is cropped, could you leave a little more room around the hawk's head (top and left side)?

Thanks. Yes, it was, but I can't find the original, dang!

 

[Early Bird]

How did I miss this post until now? I love it.

My best ID for this is the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Here's why:
1) Cooper's hawks migrate; they are residents in Massachusetts and can be found only in parts of Maine. Sharpies are residents in parts of Maine. At any time of year they appear more common than Coopers. Hawk Count data site

2) The Sharpie's streaks are courser than the Cooper's. Coopers are thinner. These pictures (great shots btw) appear to show thicker streaks. Also, the juvenile Sharpie's streak extend farther down on the belly than Cooper's which tends to end higher on the underparts. This bird's streak extend all the way to its thigh.

3) The tail: Sharpie's have a much narrower pale terminal tail band and its undertail coverts are always unmarked. Sometimes Cooper's are streaked. See pic. #1 (So that one isn't definitivel, but) As for tail shape, the CH tail feather's are progressively shorter than the central pair so is has a more rounded look. While the SH can also appear round, its feather are roughly uniform in size and more often appears square or notched when folded. Notice the notch?

4) The head: CH is more square, SH more round with the pale stripe above the eye which CH lacks. Juvenile Cooper's have an orange or buff head.

All my comments are specifically for juveniles. I just reviewed my Sibley's Guide, my Peterson's Advanced Birding guide, and a couple of websites (Cornell and hawkwatch).

There was a comment about the tarsus (legs) that in my judgement would lead to Copper's: SH are supposed to look thinner proportionally "pencil-like" which would make it look long legged. Cooper's are supposed to not look as long proportionately.

Anyway, thanks for posting. It was fun paying attention to all those details.

 

[Puck]

Early Bird
very compelling arguments and great observations. This is a tricky one.
Here is a good side by side http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/accipiterIDtable.htm

One point to remember in the east there is no size overlap with female sharpies and and male coopers. This conclusion was made by Brian Wheeler after measuring about a thousand skins.

I still stand by coopers based on "GISS" general imression of size and shape. (Birders needed to come up with a new term. Gestalt was to passe') It is crow sized.

I can send this one out to some experts for some input.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Wow, who knew I was starting a bird war!

 

[Early Bird]

Hey man,
I am a peacenik. No bird wars for me.
It could be a coopers, but I still stand by sharpie and don't mind if it ever turns out to be that I'm wrong. I did check out that last cornell link before my previous post- it's a good one. Too bad we don't have the frontal view on Tom's picture. I didn't mention size in my findings because I can't really judge size from the photo, because the post read that maybe it was smaller than a crow but bigger than a blue jay, and because of the lack of difference in size depending on the gender. I focused on range and breast, tail, and head patterns.
We'll maybe never know for sure. Tyrone seems safe for all, aye?

 

[Puck]

I have gone back and forth with a friend who has worked with one of the top five hawk experts in the US. I was shocked by the answer.

It is a juv Broad Wing.

First the area the bird was seen is in the range of SS, CC and BW. So they are all in the running.

The bird was described as being the size of a crow. Rules out SS.

The primary wing feathers extend down to the end of the tail. Rules out all accipitors.

I asked my friend what his determining field marks were:

"Well, it's just about everything about it from the huge feet to the stocky body and short tail, head shape etc.... I'm not the best at figuring out exactly the differences but after 35 years of looking at them it sometimes... sometimes just comes natural! Like everyone I make mistakes but I'm pretty sure on this one. Oh, the brown markings on the white breast are chevrons rather than teardrops which would be the case with coops and shins too."

The photo was taken in mid Sep. the time when broad wings migrate. They migrate by riding thermals in large groups called kettles. They are the first to start thier migrations because thier main source of food is reptiles, which dissappear with the cold.

 

[Grumpy]

The size description is somewhat ambiguous. First described as crow size (about 17.5" long), the bird later was described as "definitely bigger than a blue jay" (BJ = about 11" long).

(Size can be hard to gauge at times. Years ago, near dusk while driving a long straight stretch of road with woods on either side, I watched in utter amazement as a sizeable flock of "pa'tridge" -- ruffed grouse -- flew across my path out ahead. Only when it took what seemed like an extraordinarily long time to close in on the spot where they had flown did I realize I had seen wild turkeys. The story probably doesn't apply very well to this discussion, but it always comes to mind and causes me to be cautious when bird sizes are discussed or estimated.)

I would rule out the broad-winged hawk on the basis of habitat. The bird in question was photographed in an open forest edge area; the broad-winged hawk is described by Sibley as hunting "from a perch within the woods."

(This doesn't precude it's perching on a rock in the open, but we do go with the clues we have.)

So I am back to choosing between the Cooper's and sharp-shinned, nudged toward the former because of size but leaning toward the latter based on markings.

Tyrone, it is, either way.

G.