Off the bat I'll say that I am not an expert on hawks and for me the lighting makes things difficult. One thing that might help some of us is knowing where the shots were taken, for known local variants, and what time of year, for possible molt limits. Also, I know someone else will contact you, but tweeters guideline says: Your real name and your e-mail address (to use as a hotlink, precede with "mailto:") must appear at the end of every message you post, as well as your city and state/province (and country if other than Canada or USA) so that other subscribers can place your message or questions in a local, regional, or global context. Just an FYI for future, because you can get a lot of help from some of these fine folks. Good luck.
Brett A. Wolfe gismybabe at yahoo.com Seattle, WA
"Valerie A. Kok" <valkok at attbi.com> wrote: I'm very new to birding. Mostly I'm an amateur photographer that likes taking photos of birds. I'm not sure if this hawk is a Cooper's Hawk, a Northern Goshawk or a Swainson's Hawk. They all still look pretty similar to me. Here are two photos of the same bird. Can any of you help me? Thanks in advance. Valerie


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day