Cooper's Hawk

TonyCooper

This fellow swooped through my yard this afternoon, and I ran to the car and grabbed my camera. The shots I took of it flying were blurred, and all I got was the back. I was going to delete the shot, but first I went through my "Birds of Florida" to verify that it's a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

The problem is that all the identification pictures in the book show front views. All the web sources show front views or views of the bird in flight.
I may be the only person offering the back view of this hawk.

I am a bit perplexed, though. There's a definite red shoulder there, but the book's illustration of the Cooper's Hawk has the white tipped tail feathers and the Red-Shouldered Hawk has white bands but not white tips at the end.

I'm going with Cooper's Hawk, but only because it's Cooper's hawk photo.

dnie

I won't swear to it, but I think you were right with Red-Shouldered hawk. My National Geo. Fielkd Gude shows the 2 white bads like that on the Red shouldereds tail. The Coopers in here more dark.

SavingFlorida

No question its a red shoulder... The head of a cooper's is much different. Also, the Red pathches on the shoulders are a field mark for RSH .. Coopers also have a longer, banded tail.
here's a photo of the front side of a coopers. You can see the difference in size of the head and tail length.

Jamie

bfjr

OOpps here we go again, and again

Nice of a "Raptor"

dlplumer

bfjr wrote:

OOpps here we go again, and again

Nice of a "Raptor"

Hikin' Mike

bfjr wrote:

OOpps here we go again, and again

Nice of a "Raptor"

rofl

raptorcaptor

I think tony means it is "his" red-shouldered hawk!

Nice capture, Tony!

TonyCooper

raptorcaptor wrote:

I think tony means it is "his" red-shouldered hawk!

Nice capture, Tony!

Right. All of my hawk shots are Cooper's hawks.

Tony Cooper