I think it was an immature hawk and those can be very hard to identify.
Measuring the bird in the first picture and comparing it to the plant in the bottom left corner, I think it is 14" high. I am guessing it is an immature sharp-shinned hawk or possibly immature cooper's hawk.
Are they a threat to my cats?
5 comments:
Oooh - how marvellous. Provided, of course, that it doesn't threaten the cats. I'll ask Michael and let you know what he thinks it might be.
Megan
Sydney, Australia
Mark - I asked Michael and his response is below.
Megan
Not being able to see its legs nor its head in full side profile, it’s rather difficult to be certain.
Of the Accipiters, it is certainly not a Goshawk – the head’s the wrong shape – but it may be a Sharp-Shinned Hawk or a Coopers Hawk.
Taking Mark’s suspicion that it may be a juvenile Sharpie or a Coopers, some key differentiators in a rear view are that the Sharpie is a smaller bird (an adult is typically say 12 inches in length, compared to 15–20 inches for an adult Coopers), has shorter wings, and the tail tip is squared whereas the Coopers is rounded. Mark’s bird looks too bulky for a summer-plumaged Sharpie, the tail tip too rounded and its wing tips extend well down toward the tail tip. So at the outset, my hunch is that it is probably a Coopers Hawk. The barred tail feathers would also tend to reinforce that view, having twice as many bars than you would typically find on a Sharpie. The adult Coopers Hawk has very well-defined tail barring, and the less well-defined barring of Mark’s bird is suggestive of a juvenile rather than an adult. This would also be consistent with an estimated 14 inch length, just less than the threshold for an adult.
I checked against the Buteo class of hawks, but they are larger birds with different head shape, and it is not a falcon.
So I’d go with a Coopers Hawk. They certainly go after rabbits, vermin and small birds, so I’d not like to say that a hungry raptor would pass up the opportunity for a feline snack.
He's awfully neat but I would not encourage him to stick around. Potential threat is as good as definite, to me. Especially for your littlest girl.
Oh my, we see those guys around our yard too. They like to nab little juicy things to eat like small kits, sqwerls, chippies and the like. Be careful going outside.
I would be afraid for the cats. I don't like hawks, it bothers me that it is illegal to kill them when they kill so many creatures.
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