What does a juvenile Cooper hawk look like?

Juveniles are brown above and crisply streaked with brown on the upper breast, giving them a somewhat hooded look compared with young Sharp-shinned Hawks’ more diffuse streaking. Look for Cooper’s Hawks to fly with a flap-flap-glide pattern typical of accipiters.

How do you tell the difference between a Cooper’s shinned and a sharp hawk?

The Cooper’s hawk has a more prominent head that is block-like and dome-shaped, while a sharp-shinned hawk has a smaller, more rounded head. Neck feathers are another key ID feature, although it is not always easy to get a look at the nape of a bird’s neck while out in the field. If you can, though, check the coloring.

How do you tell the difference between a Red-tailed hawk and a Cooper’s hawk?

The Cooper’s hawk has a long, narrow tail usually with dark horizontal bands. On the other hand, the Red-tailed hawk has a much shorter and wider tail and does not have the horizontal bands. The Cooper’s hawk also has more markings on its chest than the Red-tailed hawk.

How big is a juvenile Cooper’s hawk?

The “chicken hawk” of colonial America, this medium-sized accipiter is a common sight at home bird feeders across the country, swooping in to nab an unwary dove or jay. Females are larger and bulkier than males, juveniles differ from adults. Monotypic. Length 14–20″; wingspan 29–37″.

Do Cooper hawks eat squirrels?

Feeds mainly on medium-sized birds, in the size range of robins, jays, flickers, also on larger and smaller birds. Also eats many small mammals, such as chipmunks, tree squirrels, ground squirrels, mice, bats. Sometimes eats reptiles, insects.

Do Coopers hawks have red tails?

Finding a Cooper’s Hawk is typically a matter of keeping your eyes peeled – they’re common but stealthy, and smaller than other common hawks like the red-tailed, so your eye might skip over them in flight. Look for the flap-flap-glide flight style and remarkably long tail to zero in on these birds in an instant.

How can you tell the age of a hawk?

The only accurate way to age adult Red-tailed Hawks to a specific year is to determine if there is one generation or two generations of flight feathers (tail and wings). Body feathers may be helpful but it is often difficult to determine if old (from the previous molt) body feathers are juvenile or adult feathers.