Sharp-Shinned Hawk

HOW COOL IS THIS!!!!!!!!!

Note the yellowish/orangish eye color.
Note how squared off the tip of his tail appears. This is a good way to distinguish sharp-shins from the very similar looking Cooper's Hawk.
Note the brown colored outer wings, back, and top of head.
Note the brown vertical stripes on his chest.
Note the extremely big grin on my face!!!! Haha! :o)

This past week we got a BIG treat in one of our nets at Erie Bluffs- a sharp-shinned hawk! Anne says that it is quite rare to catch a hawk in a mist net. It was a vErY VeRy SuPeR ExCiTiNg experience for me- being the raptor lover that I am!!!!! :o) We determined that this bird is a male juvenile sharp-shinned hawk. We deduced that he is a male by measuring his tail length, wing chord, and weight . Typically with raptors males are smaller than females, and such is the case with sharp-shins. He was about the size of a blue jay. We can tell that he is a second year bird based on his immature brown plumage that was mottled with molt limits. Sharp-shinned hawks retain their immature plumage for one year; so this means is that this guy hatched last spring. Mature sharp-shins have a grey color on their outer wings, back, and top of their head. They also have horizontal rufous streaking on their chest and bright red eyes. As you can see in the pictures posted, our buddy here is has brown outer wings, back, and top of the head. He has vertical brown streaking on his chest and yellowish/orangish eyes. All of these characteristics are indicative of a juvenile sharp-shin.

A BIG ThAnK YoU to Sacha for being our on-call hawk expert! He gave us all of the info we needed to determine the sex and age of the bird!

This was my most exciting capture thus far and I am so grateful for this experience!!! It was an amazing feeling to hold and release him. Hopefully, if I get reallllllly lucky, this won't be my last raptor-in-the-hand experience for the season *fingers crossed* :o)