A SUMMARY FROM THE ORIGINAL POSTER:


My little ID help question about a raptor (from 2014) turned into a great
discussion, and as I always thought, hawk ID is hard!



The bird was seen and photographed by me in September 2014 in Magnuson
Park, Seattle. At the time, I identified it as a Cooper's Hawk. Just this
past week, a birder commented that it might be a Broad-winged Hawk instead,
a definite rarity for this area. After getting more details from him which
left me confused, I put out the call to Tweeters for help. Turned out to
be quite challenging, even for the experts!



I do wish that I had more photos. Sadly, I believe the memory card is
still in the camera I had in 2014-;and it, along with the laptop I had then,
were both stolen during a home burglary in 2015. Somewhere, perhaps, a
clueless thief has the definitive ID photo we need.



However, that being said, after reviewing comments sent to the listserv, to
me privately, and posted on the Flickr site (
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mizmak/15199769280), I'm going to leave the
ID as it is, a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. It's been fascinating to read all
the details of the field marks-;the experts out there are truly amazing. Thanks
especially to Bud Anderson, always the go-to expert for raptors, for taking
the time to thoroughly study this bird.



The next time I see an accipiter, I sure will be looking a lot more
closely--thanks again, everyone!

Alex MacKenzie

On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 7:28 AM, Bud Anderson <falconresearch at gmail.com>
wrote:


> Alexandra MacKenzie's raptor photo is misleading to many because the

> upward angle of the shot compresses the bird, suggesting that it is far

> more compact than it really is.

>

> Because of this, people are thinking Broad-wing, which are being seen more

> frequently these days. But it doesn't quite fit.

>

> If you look closely, this bird becomes what the original person said it

> was, a juvenile Cooper's Hawk.

>

> And I will confess that I shared this photo with my friend, Bill Clark,

> and we discussed it thoroughly.

>

> This opinion is based on the following characters.

>

> First, the toes are bird catching accipitrine toes, long and thin, not

> buteo toes.

>

> Second, the breast streaking is in the form of the classic extended tear

> drop, so typical of juvenile Cooper's Hawks.

>

> Sharp-shins have wider "paint-brush" breast markings, often overlaid in

> "chains" of feathers. The toes are also thinner in Sharpies and the eye is

> larger in proportion to the head.

>

> There is also an adventitious adult Cooper's Hawk feather located in the

> birds left flank.

>

> Finally, although the tail feathers look a bit like SSHA, I think the

> foreshortening is also compressing the outer tips, which are much shorter

> in COHAs than SSHAs.

>

> Are there any more photos available of this bird?

>

> Bud Anderson

>

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>

>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20180209/753c1618/attachment.html>