Sparrowhawk age please? - London UK (1 Viewer)

I'd decided to wait until this bird returns, as most of it was in cover, but I thought I'd post this and see what others think.

(Tom: This isn't the male I posted the other day; this showed up the day after, and you can see the colour is very different.)


My first impression was a juvenile (1cy) male, as it was small and very brown overall. Looking closer I can see pale fringes to the scapular feathers, and an untidy-looking breast barring. The eye is lemon yellow, which looks good for 1cy (males' eyes look more orange to me, even young males) OK so far?

However, the mantle feathers are lacking that scalloped effect, and look better for 2cy+ Also, the Supercilium looks much too faint for a 1cy bird.

But, the bird looks "new", really clean overall.

There's no view of the breast barring, although it might be the same for 1cy or 2cy at this time of the year? There's also no view of any other part of the bird.

So, as you might have guessed, I can't make my mind up

What do you think?

Thanks

looks like a juvie to me, they are out of the nest for more than a month now and the buffish borders start to get less obvious imo

Thanks for replying, Tom. I'll try and get better pics of the whole bird when it returns, just to get a better overall view of age

If I'm right, and it's male, it'll be interesting to see how he gets on with the adult male; even allowing for overlapping territories. And if 'Fred' comes back (the male that specialises in catching Mice)... well, who knows what will happen