[KenW]

At first I couldn't figure out what was making the racket. I was pretty sure our ( somewhat) resident barred owl had ticked off one of our other backyard residents or visitors.. When I found them , it was more than a squabble, the two were having an out and out brawl
I have to apologize for the quality of the photos, neither bird was being cooperative and the owl was giving back as good as it received. At first I saw the white tail bars and thought ohh, a merlin, but the breast is more barred than streaked , IMO, and I couldn't see any cheek line that a merlin might have. Also it seemed just a tad large for a merlin. I'm thinking a sharp shinned hawk? ( blue / grey back, breast barred & reddish brown, wings don't extend too far down the tail, tail banded white, dark ) Please correct me if I'm wrong

[Robert]

Or maybe Cooper's Hawk?

[KenW]

yup, that's a possibility too. Couldn't get a good enough look to distinguish any more. So many markings are common to both, so I'm not sure which it is

[KenW]

I guess what I should have asked is... If it is Coopers and not a sharp shinned, what is it about it's markings etc that help distinguish the two?

[birdergirl]

Here is a helpful tool to determine if it is a Sharp-shinned or Cooper's Hawk unfortunately the angle in your photo makes it hard to judge the useful field marks.

http://feederwatch.org/learn/tricky-bir ... nned-hawk/


Cheers,
Mel

[KenW]

Thx Mel
That is helpful, unfortunately, as you say, the views I got don't lend themselves to ID ing it well at all. Was hoping to get a look at rounded vs squared tail
I'm just glad I got to watch them. Kinda reminded me of Ali vs Chuvalo

lol, now that reference dates me