Sharpie vs. Coopers: Northern Utah (1 Viewer)

This sparked much more of a debate than I thought it would--I thought I had a pretty clear picture! My girlfriend is the photographer; I will get more pictures from her in the morning that will hopefully help.

It seems like some people may be factoring my own impression too heavily--I've only ever seen a single Cooper's and no Sharpies at all. My impression is based solely on my own understanding of the nape and head shape differences between the species. (And that understanding comes pretty much exclusively from what Sibley has to say about it)

I will also try and figure it what species the tree in when the sun rises. This is just a rental house and I'm no arborist, so I can't tell you off the top of my head.

fugl said:

Ok, you're sticking to your claim that there's enough difference between an adult female Sharpie and adult male Coop to reliably discriminate between them on head shape & eye position alone. In my experience--and I'm talking field experience here, not looking-at-photos experience--head and eye shape & eye positioning can vary markedly with the angle and emotional state of the bird and thus provide a solid basis for positive ID only in conjunction with other field marks.

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Female Sharpie vs. male Cooper's can be difficult with immature birds. But an adult male Cooper's would have gray cheeks...right? (and this should be a mature adult because of the red eyes)
I think IDing Sharp-shins and Cooper's without photos and just with bins in the field is dangerous. I have a hard time trusting any report of one of the two (and immature Goshawks) without a photo.

Here's an entire album of pictures. Do any field marks in this album help? Let me know what your thought process is.

edited to include the actual link: https://imgur.com/a/OuaKM

In the shots that show the tail, you can see that the tail feathers are all the same length, which confirms that this is a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

D Halas said:

In the shots that show the tail, you can see that the tail feathers are all the same length, which confirms that this is a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

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Agreed, the tail shots provide the additional evidence needed to move the bird from the “probable” Sharpie column to the “virtually certain ”. It’s been a long ride but we got there in the end. . ..