Finprof,
My reasoning for the immature statement comes from experience that any bird with yellow in the eyes and feet tend to get very bright vivid colors as they mature, even in the females. The description of tail feathers of different
lengths is quite logical. Thanks for researching this, often "picture" bird books do not cover these details.

Mary

After a bit of looking around on the internet, I found several references to eye color of the immature birds. Both the Cooper's Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk immature birds (apparently both sexes) have yellow eyes. There were some comments about the Cooper's Hawk head being more prominent, more easily noticeable in flight. The body of the Cooper's Hawk was described as being rounded or barrel shaped with the hips being the approximate size of the upper body and thick legs, whereas the Sharp-shinned Hawk's body is much more tapered toward the hips. Take a look at the legs of the two immature birds shown just above "Transitional plumage" here. Also, take a look at the more prominent head/neck of the Cooper's Hawk in the same set of pictures.

The immature Northern Harrier' eye color apparently varies by sex (immature female eyes brown, immature male eyes gray). http://www.utep.edu/leb/chih/theland/an ... arrier.htm

I was sitting in a water truck waiting for it to fill up, a half grown cottontail came out from under the QC trailer and was right in the way of the truck, I got out, got the rabbit to move on the side of the road by some bushes, got back in the truck looked up to make sure the bunny was gone and bam just like that a red tailed hawk swooped down picked up the rabbit, took it to the top of a telephone pole and ate him up. I think the hawk killed the bunny on the pick up with his talons, because there was no noise from the bunny. Happened so fast, there was a guy about 20 yards away filling up his cement truck, I got out to turn off the water and he ask me what happened to the bunny in the road and I pointed up at the hawk on the pole. After the hawk ate the rabbit it flew back into a big cottonwood tree, where he could watch the different animals crossing the road to get to the pond for a drink, ultimate predator.

Birds have light bones and struggling prey is dangerous, so they hit hard with those talons and dispatch most critters on contact.

Sorry guys, the first bird is absolutely not a Cooper's or Sharp Shin. Absolutely something in Genus Buteo.

Not a harrier, either.

The second one absolutely IS either Cooper's or Sharp Shin, hard to tell scale. Clearly not any kind of falcon.

I took the full-blown photo (not the two crops) to a local biologist who passed it around his crew, including the ornithologists. None of them had any doubts on what it was based on characteristics and location. It's a 2nd year female sharp-shinned hawk, and one thought he had a couple pictures of the same bird taken about a mile away from my house. Those who guessed sharp-shinned are right. The rest, well, I'll have another bird to ID as soon as I get around to looking at the pictures on my memory card. We just got home from camping at Ocean Shores, WA, and I got some shots of an an apparently wounded bird.

OK maybe

http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/ ... hawk_3.htm

As promised, here's one more bird to identify. Since there was so much interest in the raptor, I'll share this one. The local was Ocean Shores on the beach of the Pacific Ocean. The size, since there is nothing here for scale, is about the size of an adult mallard drake. This one is admittedly much less cool than a raptor with a fresh kill. I think you guys got more excited about finding the ID of the other one than I did. As this isn't the "ID this bird" forum and I don't expect to have any more pictures to ID, this will be the last one.

F*** the duck, back to the hawk. My Audubon western edition bird book shows the nearly same bird in the same pose. My money is on an immature Sharp shinned. There are a few around my neighborhood annihilating the squirrel population. There are chunks of inedible rodent parts all over.

Yes, yes. The hawk has been identified positively as a second-year female sharp-shinned hawk, and I'm waiting on a response from a biologist who thinks he might have pictures of that individual bird from close to here from another study where it was also positively identified.

Jason, the duck is an immature Surf Scoter.

Horizontal bands on tail feathers indicate Red-Shouldered Hawk.
I have two that visit my backyard regularly.
They love mourning doves that frequent my feeders.

Tim

Multiple experts have already identified the individual bird and its species. Case closed.

...and the duck is obviously a quackus fuglious buttuglious which occur mostly on the left coast. (See: Quackus Fuglious Pelosious) Easily recognized by its heavily botoxed beak, spindly legs, and antisocial attitude. Poor thing looks like it should have a "Kick Me" sign on its rear...

Good one CWS.

There are a few good people on the left coast but for the most part it is a huge WASTE LAND.