Cooper's Hawk, probably male

I think it is a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

mkull, I think you are right. I looked more closely at his head and he does have the cap, which a Red-Shouldered Hawk does not.

the Red has a much shorter tail and the tail banding is thin white on thick black whereas the Cooper's and Sharp Shinned tail banding is pretty even thickness. It can be fairly tricky to distinguish say a young male CH and an adult female SSH. The legs again help us figure it out. The SSH has really thin legs. Your visitor has beefy ones so definitely a CH.

With that checkered breast it makes me think Sharp Shinned Hawk. Both Cooper's and Sharp Shinned frequent bird feeding stations and are often confused with one another. Cooper's has a red eye and Sharp Shinned yellow.

Years ago when a hawk was getting my fan tailed pigeons I called a the Audubon Society and when I described the hawk as being small and with a checked breast they surmised it was a Sharp Shinned that was migrating though Texas at that particular time of year. They advised that the pigeons be caged for those particular months when they were moving through in the fall and spring. I don't remember the months now, but I did as was advised and didn't have any more loses until much later when red tails hawks moved into the neighborhood full time.

I am certainly no expert birder; just go by pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooper's vs Sharp Shinned hawk ...

This post was edited by roselee on Mon, Aug 18, 14 at 18:16

WELL! What a useful discussion this is! It looks like I may have visits from one of each!

What do others think (see below).

Jeri
(Coastal Ventura County, Southern California)

Jeri, it looks like you may have both Cooper's and Sharp Shinned hawks.

I googled 'protecting bird feeding stations from hawks' and came up with this helpful advice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Protect back yard birds from hawks ....

Jeri, I think both are Cooper's. The left in an immature and also appears to have too large of legs. I can't see the leg on the right but overall it looks way too big to be a Sharpie. The largest adult SSH (female) will be the size of the smallest adult CH.

SSH's will always have toothpick legs.

Thank you roselee -- Several of us have been tossing this around.

I thought at first that I had immature and mature birds of one species ... but when the presumed sharp-shinned showed up again, on 8-16-14 . . . I knew I must have two different species.

Now, to figure out which of the two species nested across the street here, in 2013 . . . :-)

Be still my heart. So so beautiful and regal!

I love that you guys are so good at IDing these birds.

Seeing it was a surprise to us and I'm happy that we were able to get good pictures.

Mkull may be right on the appearance being the difference between a mature and immature Cooper . I'm just guessing while looking at photos.

Mrs. Wiggley -- yes! What beautiful birds ... :-)

What great pix!!!! They are gorgeous.

Hawk was back this morning

Here's one in my yard in SoCal. I'm pretty sure it is a Cooper's Hawk. Unfortunately, he was back lit and a bit high up, and so I had to adjust the photo in order to see the breast. It looks very much like yours, however.

Lars

It looks like the one that keeps to our backyard.