Sharp-Shinned Hawk

Acipiter striatus

This is not a Red-Tailed Hawk. The pattern on the breast and belly are wrong. The size is wrong. The Red-Tailed Hawk is 20 inches in length This bird was a couple of inches larger than a 9 inch American Kestril.

This is probably not a Red-Shouldered Hawk. Again, the size is wrong. The Red-Shouldered Hawk is typically 17 inches in length (Stokes & Stokes, p. 164). Note that this bird's eyes are yellow. Stokes & Stokes (p.164) note a "dark brown eye" for the Red-Shouldered Hawk.

The identification of this bird as a Sharp-Shinned Hawk is accompanied by a short story. Slightly before noon on this day, I was sitting on the porch watching a feeder some 15 feet in front of me. The sky was overcast. Wind had been gusting to 20 mph, the temperature was in the 40's, and it was drizzling rain. The feeder was being used by Chipping Sparrows and a few Goldfinches. There were more than 24 birds on the feeder and on the ground under it. The bird above swooped in towards the feeder and me, skirted the tree the feeder was in and landed on the porch roof to my upper right. It sat there for a minute, and I could only see its tail hanging over the edge of the roof. Then the bird dove towards the ground where most of the sparrows were. It missed catching one and flew to a tree perhaps 40 feet beyond. It sat there for less than a minute while I took this picture.

"A small hawk, the Sharp-shinned Hawk is a regular visitor to bird feeders, where it eats birds, not seed. " (Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds)

Stokes & Stokes' (p. 158) description of the Sharp-Shinned Hawk includes these remarks: "Throat, chest, flanks, and underwing coverts barred reddish brown ... Head small, neck thin, forehead angles off culmen (creating a small notch) to short rounded crown; eye just forward of center in rounded head creates a wide-eyed look ... bill gray with yellow cere; eye orange to deep red; cheeks bright reddish brown ... [about juveniles, they add] eye yellowish, changing to orange by spring ..."

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds website concludes "Juveniles brown on back and wings. Underparts with coarse brown streaks. Thin white eyestripe. Underwing white with dark brown barring. Eyes yellow."

So this is a juvenile Sharp-Shinned Hawk.

Compare the Sharp-Shinned Hawk from the Cornell Ornithological Lab's website.

Lockwood & Freeman (p.43) write that the Sharp-Shinned Hawk is "Uncommon to common migrant, and uncommon winter resident throughout the state. Sharp-shinned Hawk is a very rare and local summer resident in the Pineywoods ... Migrating and wintering Sharp-shinned Hawks arrive in mid-September and most depart by early May."

Photo taken with a Nikon D90 using a Nikon 400mm f/5.6 lens.

March 5, 2011.