Date: 8/29/25 9:52 am From: Merle and Marsha Hall <mghall...> Subject: [ia-bird] Chasin' squirrels...
This guy showed up in our neighbor's backyard yesterday morning. Marsha
saw him and I grabbed the camera and followed him around up and down the
alley. He kept trying to catch a squirrel, any squirrel, but was never
successful. I bet he tried six or eight times and failed every time.
Immature Sharp-shinned Hawk, best I can tell from the description on the
Cornell site: " Very thick, rufous stripes that extend down the lower
belly are a good indication of Sharp-shinned Hawk, and very thin, dark
streaks that fade away on the lower belly are a good indication of
Cooper’s Hawk." and "The size of the head relative to the body can be a
reliable field mark....usually a Sharp-shinned Hawk’s head looks small,
and a Cooper’s Hawk’s head looks large. Sharp-shinned Hawks appear
short-necked; Cooper’s Hawks appear tall." Though it also says
Sharp-shinned are smaller than a crow and this guy was bigger than that.
I didn't get any great photos. These are pretty cropped as I tried to
stay far enough away so as to not interfere. Would've liked to get one
of him and the squirrel, but missed. At one point, he was up and down on
the other side of a small berm and came to rest where he is in that
photo with the Hosta leaves. At that point, the squirrel comes out from
behind a parked car and saunters by not ten feet from him. He just sat
there.Maybe he was just practicing? The Cornell description says their
diet is mainly small birds, so who knows. These were probably young
squirrels, but they had him beat.
