Cooper’s Hawk

Our backyard forest treetops resounded with chattering birds on 12 September 2020. Such a racket is often a sign of an owl nearby. I scanned the woods and was surprised to see a Coopers Hawk perched on an exposed tree branch. Its crop bulged—I hope its prey was not one of my banded songbirds. Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned hawks can be difficult to tell apart, especially when the bird is some distance away. One field mark is the nape—gray in the Cooper’s, black in the Sharp-shinned. The Sharp-shinned is a smaller raptor than the Cooper’s and has a rounder, less square head profile. The tail shape also differs, but, I could not see the tail. I hope this hawk does not stick around my bird feeders.