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#bird #hawk #avian #birdofprey #birdsofprey #feathers #raptor #birdphotography #raptorbird
Published: 2016-02-25 09:18:43 +0000 UTC; Views: 566; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 0
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Description
A male cooper's hawk. (Thanks for the help with the ID
)He actually swooped down, flew over to a small bush in my yard and started digging around in it for several minutes, popping in and out, likely trying to catch prey. I've seen lots of other birds, little birds and crows, do this but no raptors, so it was really cool watch.
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Comments: 12
It´s a beautiful bird. I´m think I´ve never seen it before. He has rare red eyes in a small head. You took a very good shot of him.
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Thank you
This is one of the first decent shots I've gotten of this species here. Normally they swoop in and out of my yard too fast for a decent picture.
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I would agree that it's probably a Cooper's Hawk. If you look at the legs, a Sharp-shinned Hawk's legs are very thin looking in proportion to the rest of their body, and they have a very sharp looking shin (hence their name). The legs on this bird look a little too thick to be a Sharp-shinned. One thing to keep in mind is that a male Cooper's Hawk is smaller than a female Cooper's Hawk. But they can be pretty close in size to a female Sharp-shinned hawk sometimes. It can be hard to tell species based on the size since they can be pretty similar. It can be very frustrating.
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Ok, the guidebooks I have covered the size, tail and head but not their legs (I was wondering about the name too).
Frustrating is true. I was starting at the different photos for way too long.
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Yea, it's really hard to tell the difference between those two species unless they are both pretty much side by side right in front of you
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Pretty much. Though this guy seems to be hanging around my yard now and caught a robin today.
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That's pretty cool!
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It is. Normally all the action I see is by the waterfront which is hard to walk right now with a bum leg.
So having all the animals here be so active in my yard lately has been great ^^
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Oh yea, I bet that is nice! Sorry to hear about your leg!
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It has been and thank you
It's much better now thankfully too ^^
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Thank you but I'm not certain either way. In my other photos he looks too small and in this photo I increased the contrast to help compensate for the blur in the photo to avoid over sharpening it (it was cloudy plus sunset). So the dark and light greys blend more in the original. I didn't get a good angle on the when he was out of the bush either :/
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That's actually a Cooper's Hawk. The tail shape is not very obvious from the side, but one key identifying feature of a coopers is the dark cap on top of its head and a lighter grey nape which is perfectly captured in your photo.
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