Was it crow sized or more Blue Jay sized? If the later it would be a Sharp-shinned, but I'm thinking it's probably an imm. Cooper's Hawk.

pretty sure its a cooper's

Thank you "all" and I agree. While crow sized much smaller than the one that dive bombed my platform feeder last week. It missed it's prey but really hit hard and I think it was stunned. I know I was. Maybe that is why it looked so big and only 10' away.

Bob

What does he have in his talons that he is about to eat for lunch? I can't tell. :)

I believe it was an immature Robin.

Bob

Looks like a sharp-shinned hawk. Look at the eye expression..it really look startled. this is a good way to tell them apart. Also the eye seem bigger in the head and more located to the center. the eye expression is very clear here. I don't even have any doubt. The Cooper's have an arch over the eye that is bigger and give them a fiercy gaze.

Nice shot. Its nice to be able to compare its size to a known factor. The fact that it is so much larger than the robin its holding confirms that it is a Coopers.

Richard

It's really not that much larger than the Robin by comparison; female Sharp-shinned, juvenile. Note the eye, the tail, the sharp-looking legs, and how THIN they are. That's a female Sharpie, for sure. . .tail's also shorter than Cooper's Hawks tails. . .

Put me in the Cooper's camp.

The feet and toes (especially) are very thin for a Coop's. Looks, to me, it's a female sharpie.

I think it's a big female Sharpie.

100% immature female sharpie. The eyes are small and oval shaped. That bird has a little round head like your typical Sharpie to boot. -Wendy

Funny that u would say that Wendy because I am 100% sure that this bird is a coopers hawk. Note the thinly streaked breast, which is indicative of coopers and not sharpie. The head does not appear to me to be overly small either. And where does it say that a sharpie has oval eyes? This is certainly no way to differentiate the two bird species, besides the eye here is large and round. This bird appears to be of good size, judging the size of its prey and the branches it is standing on. It is for these reasons that I say it is a juvenile coopers hawk.

I say Sharp-shinned Hawk on that one.

The coarse streaking of the breast, the round eye, the round head...

And I don't think he is eating a young robin. Young robin are stockier with brown spots on breast.

Luc

This debate's been on for awhile. My two cents: I don't think the legs are that thin, I don't think the tail is that short, I think the head is sizable and the bill particularly so, and the bird looks overall 'lanky' to me, which is a word I see used over and over to describe Cooper's Hawk. That's my vote.

-O-

Ummm Luc that streaking looks thin to me, not coarse. It is quite obvious from the picture that the bird is large, escpecially due to the prey its holding, I mean if that birds about the size of a blue jay, what could look that small in comparison? This is quite obviously a large coopers hawk.