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Shikra or Eurasian Sparrowhawk or Besra (1 Viewer)

jeevmenon

Member
Hi friends:

I joined the forum today. I am from Chennai, South India. Couple of months in to the lockdown I started bird watching thru the window and got addicted. Bought a Nikon P900 x83 zoom not for photography but to see the birds closer post clicking and identifying them. Thus far got to 75 species. And I use the Merlin / eBird apps to identify and log. However this morning in my apartment garden I found the below:

1DSCN9717.jpg

2Paint-DSCN9712.jpg

3PaintShikraSparrowHawk1.jpg

Can you help me ID this? Eurasian Sparrowhawk or Shikra or Besra or Something else?

Thank you so much.
Sanjeev.

P.S - I have some very interesting stories which I plan to share here in the right forum. Hopefully the southern people are seeing the migration happening and witnessing annual visitors at their places. Enjoy!
 
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Thanks andyb39. However how do you tell the difference? They are so similar. Shikra I have seen on the internet has horizontal stripes at the bottom belly area and the wings are gray. Adult male below:

ShikraMale.jpg

And a female I saw a few years back with the yellow iris also had palish gray overall body color unlike this.

I understand that this is a juvenile.

But this wiki Eurasian Sparrowhawk looks similar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_sparrowhawk#/media/File:Accipiter_nisus_-England_-immature_with_kill-8.jpg

Or is it that the sparrowhawk is not seen in this part of the world?

Even Merlin identified mine as a Eurasian Sparrowhawk. More info will help me distinguish them.
 
Thanks andyb39. However how do you tell the difference?

I understand that this is a juvenile.

Even Merlin identified mine as a Eurasian Sparrowhawk. More info will help me distinguish them.

I agree with Andy - this is s juvenile Shikra not a juvenile Eurasian Sparrowhawk for the reasons Andy stated. (The structure, tail pattern, grey orbital ring and tail pattern all rule out juvenile Besra)

Btw Jeevemenon, welcome to Birdforum!
 
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Thanks Andy and Deb. The "orbital ring". Learnt something today. Lovely! Eurasian Sparrowhawk and Besra have the same yellow eye-ring and they are distinguished via the tail-pattern? How is that?
 
Thanks Andy and Deb. The "orbital ring". Learnt something today. Lovely! Eurasian Sparrowhawk and Besra have the same yellow eye-ring and they are distinguished via the tail-pattern? How is that?

Besra and Shikra are distinguished by the tail pattern and colour of orbial ring among other things.

Juvenile Eurasian Sparrowhawks do not show streaked bellies in any plumage so can be distinguished from juvenile Shikras and Besras.

I would suggest investing in a field guide that will be of help to you. The Helms field guides are good:

https://www.onbuy.com/gb/birds-of-s...VC9iyCh1ExAYiEAQYBCABEgKB9PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
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