Hi Claire, Found this old thread; thought I'd rehash the past. Ha! I can't help myself. I'm a hawk watcher. Your opening photos were undoubtedly an accipiter. The grey/black banded tail is the dead giveaway. The length of it is more pronounced than that of any buteo. The wing tips of a Red-shouldered Hawk come just about to the tip of the tail when perched. A Red-shouldered would never have grey/black as its tail colors and wouldn't have such a distinction between tip of wing to tip of tail. Also, notice how widely spaced the banding on the tail is; a RSHA juvenile would have narrowly-spaced light brown/dark brown banding on a much shorter, tapered tail. Juv RSHA would have heart-shaped streaking on chest down to the belly. Since you have familiarity with the small size of Sharpies and believed this to be too large, I'd day you had a juvenile Cooper's hawk here. Also, Blue Jays frequently imitate Red-shouldereds to freak out feeding birds and lay claim to what they leave behind. Tricksy birds, they are. Perhaps you've heard them do that. But you may have heard a RSHA in your woods as they seem to cling to the east coast year-round rather than fully migrate out. This post was edited by TMFF on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 17:31

I fully agree. I have a pair of birds apparently nesting somewhere on my property that I frequently see mating (or snagging birds from my birdfeeder. . . .) that I can't get close enough to with my binoculars to readily identify. Although I have fairly positively identified Coopers as being around, this pair could be either species. What's interesting is that I also have mated pairs of both Red Tails & Red Shoulders on the property, & the 3 pairs are always bickering between themselves. Even the crows won't get involved when they're going at it - lol!

I can't say for sure from the first picture, but the two others show a beautiful juvenile Cooper Hawk! The long rounded tail with broad white tip is very typical. Great pics! Luc

LOL. OK, I saw this post last summer and said female Sharpie, and I am *still* convinced that it's a first-year female Sharp-shinned. A female Cooper's would be about 17 - 20 ' long from tip of beak to tip of tail. A male Cooper's would be about one-third smaller. Female Sharp-shinned's can rival the size of male Cooper's Hawks, and being that the tail has the tell-tale thin margin of gray and a thin band of white at the tips, also suggests Sharpie. HOWEVER, because this bird isn't finished molting yet, the tail-tips could very easily be worn. THAT being said, look at the new feathers coming in at the tail; they seem to still show that sign for a Sharp-shinned to me. . .