Cooper's Hawk

Description:

A medium-sized hawk with the classic accipiter shape: broad, rounded wings and a very long tail. In Cooper’s Hawks, the head often appears large, the shoulders broad, and the tail rounded. Adults are steely blue-gray above with warm reddish bars on the underparts and thick dark bands on the tail. Juveniles are brown above and crisply streaked with brown on the upper breast, giving them a somewhat hooded look compared with young Sharp-shinned Hawks' more diffuse streaking.

Notes:

A last minute outing to find some frogs turned out to be a great hour of birding! I had photographed several shore birds and was on my way back to the car when I saw a solid dark bird in a tree. I knew it was something cool. As I got closer I realized it was a Cooper's Hawk (which I have been dying to photograph!) He had recently killed what I think is a pigeon. He didn't stay long and my photo is very grainy but is was very exciting to finally see one of these guys up close in the wild!