Bird Pics....

[eyeguy 54]

Post em up Peeps!! Post em up!

[eyeguy 54]

Mr C and a strange visitor...

[toughguy]

I heard a robin tweeting away in the neighborhood last week. I never saw him but it was nice to hear one again. The older I get the more I like robins. They sing a cool little song as they hunt down their prey like little feathered dinosaurs tilting their heads and hopping all around.

[MootScoot]

Redpoll and goldfinch lunch time.

[eyeguy 54]

Neat feeder!.

[Sturg]

About a week ago I had the juvenile hawk come through twice one day. I believe it is a sharp shinned . It was a small hawk. Today a larger adult hawk came. I believe it is a Cooper's hawk. They look very similar. The adult cooper's was at least a third size bigger. Would a juvenile cooper's be about the same size as an adult? The pictures aren't quite focussed because I shot them through a closed window. The juncos really vamoose when the hawks come in.

[eyeguy 54]

cool! they love a meal of junco now and then. Parent and kid maybe??

[Netman]

I just checked with my Audubon Phone app and it looks like you've got a couple of sharp shins but it's hard to say for certain without seeing just how large that adult is...it could be a Coopers too

[EBass]

Cooper first pic and sharpy on the other? The 2nd pic has red eyes while the 1st has yellow. Both are way cool - poor song birds in the area better watch out.

[eyeguy 54]

Adults in both have redish eyes. Yellow eyes in kids. I still think it's a kid and parent Coopers but I have been wrong many times on things.

Doing some reading on them and the Coopers eyes are suposedley closer to the beak than the Sharp Shinned.

[EBass]

Google the images EG. All the Sharpie pics show red eyes and Cooper's have yellow. Plus the Sharpie has an orange tinge on the breast while Coopers are white with brown spots, they are also bigger. Granted I'm no raptor expert - just comparing the pics to what google has. Last pic in the lucky me thread is sweet. Very crisp - even the guts!

[Sturg]

Met a fellow doing bird counts so I asked him. He said an immature female SS is about the same size as a male Cooper. He also mentioned the eye distance and a square tail vs a rounded tail. The first hawk was at least 1/3 smaller than the second hawk. I saw the small one again yesterday as it crashed into the neighbor's window while chasing a junco. It was in a daze for about 30 sec and flew off into a fir tree. I'm hoping to get more pics. There are plenty of juncos for bait.

[eyeguy 54]

nice rounded tailsin the pics. I gotta vote Coopers EB from the reading I have done both adults wether cooper or sharpy have red eyes.

[eyeguy 54]

oops, didn't realize i messed up with that pic.

[EBass]

all about birds dot org

Coopers Hawk

Size & Shape

A medium-sized hawk with the classic accipiter shape: broad, rounded wings and a very long tail. In Cooper’s Hawks, the head often appears large, the shoulders broad, and the tail rounded.

Color Pattern

Adults are steely blue-gray above with warm reddish bars on the underparts and thick dark bands on the tail. Juveniles are brown above and crisply streaked with brown on the upper breast, giving them a somewhat hooded look compared with young Sharp-shinned Hawks' more diffuse streaking.

Behavior

Look for Cooper’s Hawks to fly with a flap-flap-glide pattern typical of accipiters. Even when crossing large open areas they rarely flap continuously. Another attack maneuver is to fly fast and low to the ground, then up and over an obstruction to surprise prey on the other side.

Habitat

Wooded habitats from deep forests to leafy subdivisions and backyards

Sharp-shinned Hawks

Size & Shape

Sharp-shinned Hawks are small, long-tailed hawks with short, rounded wings. They have small heads that in flight do not always project beyond the “wrists” of the wings. The tail tends to be square-tipped and may show a notch at the tip. Females are considerably larger than males.

Color Pattern

Adults are slaty blue-gray above, with narrow, horizontal red-orange bars on the breast. Immature birds are mostly brown, with coarse vertical streaks on white underparts. Adults and young have broad dark bands across their long tails.

Behavior

Sharp-shinned Hawks are agile fliers that speed through dense woods to surprise their prey, typically songbirds. They do not stoop on prey from high overhead. They may also pounce from low perches. When flying across open areas they have a distinctive flap-and-glide flight style.

Habitat

Sharp-shinned Hawks breed in deep forests. During migration, look for them in open habitats or high in the sky, migrating along ridgelines. During the nonbreeding season they hunt small birds and mammals along forest edges and sometimes at backyard bird feeders, causing a wave of high-pitched alarm calls among the gathered songbirds

Cool info - I dunno about the red eyes. Some have them and some don't even when they state it's an adult.

[ShawnZ]

Maybe it's a shooper's hawk...they are not well known...

[MN Shutterbug]

Maybe it's a shooper's hawk...they are not well known...

I think I have one of them around here terrorizing my song birds.

[eyeguy 54]

don't let it get yer snake!