On Jan 18, 2011, at 6:27 PM, Jonah Allred wrote:

> That's a tough description because the bird is "streaked from chest to belly, but "the head was streaky gray with a noticeable white supercilium". That doesn't fit juvenile or adult goshawk, or any accipiter for that matter, the traits are mixed up.

Ignoring the head description ... as the breast/belly was clearly seen.

The streaky breast fits a juvi Coop or juvi Sharpie or a juvi Goshawk.

The white supercillium fits a juvi Sharpie or a juvi Coop or a goshawk.

You could imagine a poorly seen accipter head being described as "gray".

So it could be an accipter.

See our previous "Can you help ID this Hawk?" thread with a "goshawk" in an east coast back yard for a similar ID problem with a photo.

> But then the bird's "wings were pointed"..."back was a uniformly dark gray." It could have been an adult Gyrfalcon, but they do not have a supercilium.

It could be an accipter in a glide. They do have "pointy" wings when gliding. And the OP says it was gliding. Not as pointy as a falcon (that always has pointy wings) but pointier than in powered or soaring flight. See Dunne, Sibley (and the other guy!) "Hawks in Flight" for details and pictures. Or any gliding Coop :-)

He could have got the back color incorrect (should be brownish for a juvi Coop ... it should have spots) but I could see not picking that up backlit, quick view, etc, etc.

> Best thing to do is leave it unidentified without a photo.

Agreed.

Without other features described adequately you can't rule out any of potential candidates.

The best/most likley match to this description is a juvi Coop (and that's what the OP said he though it might be at first) but without better description one can't really tell just what it was.

I replied in more detail to the original poster.
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Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
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