Picture of back side of hawk..

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

Sure looks like a young Cooper's hawk. Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks (both immature and adult) look very much alike and can be very difficult to tell apart. Sharpies are the smaller of the two (a little larger than a blue jay) and Cooper's are crow-sized. Sharpies also have a square-tipped tail whereas the tip of the Cooper's tail is rounded which appears to be the case in your photo. Both fly with shallow wingbeats in a quick flap, flap glide pattern though the smaller sharpie will have quicker, more spastic wingbeats than the larger Cooper's. Hope that helps. Beautiful hawk you have there and nice pictures!

One question to the experts: Anyone seeing an eye stripe or is it just me? I really doubt is a young goshawk but just wondering.

That is a female juvenile Cooper's hawk, and a beauty. Female coops are way longer than crows.

It's not a gos because it doesn't look like a gos, and they don't breed in Bloomington : ). Goshawks are much bigger than coops, too.

She's a beaut! Thanks for sharing the picture. I hope I can get a decent pic of the hawk hanging around my yard.

Nice looking pictures. I agree that it looks like a Coopers hawk.

Richard

It looks like a Cooper's Hawk because it is a Cooper's Hawk (sorry, I couldn't help it-hedging when a photo isn't good is one thing, but this one is screamingly obvious).

Elly always kills me when she sexes them, and I'm sure she's right; she's worked with enough of them.

Great photo, thanks for sharing it.

-O-

Hi all,

I'm new here, but it sure looks a lot like this Cooper's Hawk I was lucky enough to capture yesterday in my backyard:
{{!gwi}}

Especially in this shot:
{{!gwi}}

I posted a couple more pictures of him in our gallery (linked below) if anyone wants to see.

Kenn

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooper's Hawk