If the hawk was engaged in a "tussle" with a kestrel, its a sharpshin. If the hawk was a coopers, it would have been an attempt to eat the kestrel, although I suppose that could also have been described as a "tussle" as well. Coopers hawks eat a lot of kestrels.

Wether its a sharpshin or a coopers cant be determined by the photo, but would be easy to determine by comparing the size to the kestrel. A coops would be 30-60% larger than a kestrel, and a sharpshin would be about the same size as a kestrel.

Geoff Hirschi in Snohomish

Quoting Robert Handfield

Message: 16
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:52:30 -0700
From: "Robert Handfield" <bobnmarg at telus.net[1]>
Subject: [Tweeters] raptor id
To: "tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu[2]>
Message-ID: <861DD3ED5760458BB5EA8F822037A6B3 at bobs[3]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Matt Boswell's raptor must surely be a Cooper's or Sharp-shinned Hawk. The long tail with bands seems pretty conclusive but I can't tell which of those two from the photo.

Bob Handfield
Kaleden BC
bobnmarg at telus.net[4]
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