Juvenile Coopers Hawk?????

[GrizzlyAdams]

Wondering if someone could confirm if this is a Juvenile coopers hawk. It caught a bird in our backyard and as you can see it is feeding quite nicely. Sorry for the blurry photos. I had to take them through my window so i didn't scare it away. Been watching it for over a half hour chowing down on its fresh kill. Absolutely amazing to watch. It was about fifteen feet away from the house.

[MN Shutterbug]

My guess would also be Cooper's. What's it feeding on?

[mixxedbagg]

The tail in that bottom photo looks awfully squared off to me....I'm lobbying for Sharp-shinned. SS are a little more numerous in MN in winter as well.

[MN Shutterbug]

You may be right. That's why I asked what it was feeding on. Size is what makes the determination to me.

[GrizzlyAdams]

We are also thinking it could have been a sharp shinned as well. It was feeding on a larger bird but couldn't really figure out what it was after it was done eating. The bird it was eating had some black feathers with white tips, some grayish colors and possibly some orange on its belly (could have been blood from the kill). The bird had about a 8 - 10 inch wing span or possibly a little larger.

The two hawks you mentioned look just like it. I was looking in our bird book and both descriptions are about the same for juveniles. It looked just like both juvenile pictures of each hawk. It had definate black stripes on the tail and the brown streaks on the chest. It was hard to tell if the eyes were yellow but it looked like they were. It's pupils were very large and made it hard to tell if the surrounding area was yellow or not.

As stated the bird it was feeding on was pretty good size. At first when we saw it we thought it got a blue jay but after examining it I don't think it was.

It was really neat watching it tear off the feathers and throw them aside and then tear out hunks of meat. It left most of the breast meat and ate the guts and one of its eyeballs. The head of the dead bird was cleaned off pretty good. Cleaned off the wing area by the breast as well.

Never seen anything like this before and ended up watching it for over an hour til it had it's fill. These kind of things make my day. Love watching wild life in action.

Thank for all replies so far. Really appreciate the feed back. Hope this helps in figuring out what kind of hawk this is.

It had very skinny legs. Remember wondering how those thin of legs held it up.

[GrizzlyAdams]

Here are a couple pics of what it was eating. The wing span is actually a little over 16 inches

This next photo is, I believe, Tail feathers

And here is what it looked like after it was done eating. This is the back of the bird

[MN Shutterbug]

The Sharp-shinned is about the size of a Jay, where the Cooper's is closer to the size of a crow. Looking over your photos again and comparing the size of the hawk to the prey, I'm still inclined to go with Cooper's.

[GrizzlyAdams]

Given the sizes you just stated you are right. It was about the size of a crow. Very plump and approximatley 20 inches from head to tip of tail. It appeared to have grabbed the bird from the air as it left the feeder. There is a small pile of feathers about ten feet away from where it actually ate it. Wish I would have seen that happen but still very excited to have witnessed such a beautiful bird doing what nature does best.

[MN Shutterbug]

I once witnessed a Sharp-shinned catch a Cedar Waxwing in flight and proceed to land in a tree where it began dining. It wasn't much larger than it's prey. I was just wishing I'd have been ready with my camera when it happened. It was pretty cool to see.

[WDH]

Grizz check out this site it may help with your ID. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/browse.aspx?shape=36,10

You were saying that it had very skinny legs. That most likey would be a Sharp-shined, the Coopers has thicker legs and big feet.

From what little I can see from your pic Iam going with it's a Cooper.

[micpic]

Grizz, I think you got that right. If that prey had a 16 inch wing span I'm thinking it took down some kind of Jay. Looking at the crash site the hawk looks to big to be a Sharp-Shinned, but I could be wrong!

[GrizzlyAdams]

Yeah he was pretty big. About the size of a crow, a little smaller than a Red-tail. He did have some pretty large feet and claws. He used them for "leverage" while he was eating. Very positive it was a juvenile as both descriptions for the Coopers and Sharp Shinned were very similar and matched this bird perfectly.

Still excited about watching it and still have the "video" burned into my head.

I will check that site out. Thank you.

[JayinMN]

The deceased bird was a morning dove and the bird eating it looks much larger then the dove so I am going with coopers.

[mixxedbagg]

You know, there is a great size differential between the males and females of both species. Male SS and female Cooper's do frequently overlap in size. So, even though this bird may be a Cooper's, be careful about using size as the SOLE identification characteristic between these species.

[EBass]

Way cool (unless your the prey) thanks for sharing. I've see a Peregrine take out some bird in flight by the Ford Dam. I just stopped fishin watchin it drive it's rear talon in the bird 100 times then spread it's wings around like it's all that.