sharpy

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I didn't take this wonderful photo of a sharp-shinned hawk; Dario Sanches took it. I do not have a crisp telephoto lens, so unless I can get only a few feet away, most birds elude me.

The photo does show the bird's namesake, its flattened, thin "shin" or shank.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sharp-shinned hawks the past week because Karen Sue and I have seen several. The photo also shows how difficult it is to tell a sharpy from a Cooper’s hawk, from most angles, they can look identical. Most guides list one of the defining field marks is that a sharp-shinned has a blunt, or "squared" tail and a Cooper’s tail is rounded. But in this photo, the tail appears to be rounded.

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