Expert: Julia Booth - 9/9/2010

Question
I saw a bird in my yard today.  I have bird feeders that service a lot of sparrows, finches and one scrub jay.  This bird was a raptor.  It was sitting on the wooden border that surrounds our raspberry patch near our bird feeders.  It was about 12-15 inches.  It had a curved, raptor-type beak, but pretty small.  The beak was light-no black on the tip or anything.  The bird's back from top to bottom was a smooth dove gray color.  No spots or bands except at the end of the tail was a black and then a white band-just one of each-not too thick.  The tail was fan shaped.  I couldn't see the underside as well, but it was light with just a touch of rust color up under it's neck.  It didn't seem to be spotted underneath either.  It was alone, and I couldn't find anything that looked very close to it in any books that I have.  The time was 3:00 p.m. I live in Woods Cross, Utah. Thanks

Answer
I actually answered this question back when you sent it. I wrote a rather lengthy reply. Now the system is telling me I never did.

Sorry for the wait.

Bear in mind that the colors and markings on raptors can vary greatly from one geographical location to another. They also vary by age and sex. So when attempting to ID a raptor, I always tell people to look at as many images as possible, and preferably images that were taken near the location where the bird was seen.

Your size and physical description narrows it down to Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk. Both are also known for staking out feeders and making a snack of the smaller birds there. Most other birds of prey feed on fish, reptiles and rodents.

If I had to pick one over the other, I would go with juvenile sharp-shinned hawk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp-shinned_Hawk

Here's a good image: http://home.comcast.net/~bobnbernie/thesharp-shinned.jpg

The female Merlin is quite a bit smaller. But I'm throwing it at you as a possibility, just to cover all my bases.

http://www.taxidermy.co.uk/birds/p7hg_img_1/fullsize/merlin-falcon-taxidermy-842...

Let me know what you think and we will go from there,

Julia