Coopers/Sharp-shinned hawk on C2C trail east of Starker Arts Park?

[Marge]

These are really blurry photos. The hawk sat on a limb next to the trail and posed for a long time...I eventually moved on...but I only had my iPhone to document.

Can anyone distinguish the ID of the hawk from these photos?

Thanks,

Marge

[Don A Boucher]

Hi Marge,

My hunch, due to the pale nape on one of the photos, that it's a Cooper's Hawk. The photos are blurry, but at least you were able to take them all, and I can't determine the species with certainty.

Even though distinguishing Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks will remain a challenge, the taxonomy of the two species has changed recently. As many of you are aware, the Accipiter genus has been reorganized. The Sharpy remains in the Accipiter genus, along with the Eurasian Sparrowhawk but the the Cooper's Hawk and American Goshawk are now in the Astur genus. So when we can't be clear on the species, such as during a bird survey, we can no longer defer to the genus. Instead, we have to defer to their subfamily Accipitrinae.

-Don Boucher