The Sharp-shinned Hawk ( Accipiter striatus), North America’s smallest hawk, joins the Cooper’s and Northern Goshawk as the only three North American raptors in the genus Accipiter, which includes long-legged hawks with short, rounded wings-highly maneuverable birds that use their long tails like rudders. A juvenile of either species has yellow eyes, while adult eyes are red. A Sharp-shinned wears grayish and dark feathers on its head and neck, while a Cooper’s are lighter. A Sharpie’s head is more rounded, smaller and less dome-shaped than a Cooper’s, and its tail is straighter-edged. While a Cooper’s is crow-sized and a Sharpie, the size of a jay, a female Sharp-shinned may be as large as a male Cooper’s, since female hawks outsize males. In fact, Sharp-shinnedHawks, or Sharpies, though somewhat smaller than Cooper’s Hawks, are almost indistinguishable from them. Prior to consulting knowledgeable birders on Facebook’s Rio Grande Valley Birding site, I assumed this raider to be the more notorious Cooper’s Hawk, another diminutive migrant with a penchant for small birds. Songwriter Joni Mitchell asked, with perennial relevance, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone?” After this temporary deprivation, I’ll warmly welcome squealing Great-tailed Grackles and the throngs of raucous, ravenous Red-winged Blackbirds due sometime in March. I hope, though-since most bird-eating hawks return to their northern breeding grounds-our usual birds, as well as vivid spring migrants, will indeed reappear. I’m enchanted by hawks, and the backyard birds, in becoming scarce, are doing what they must. As I attempted to take its photo, though, it vanished like smoke I never heard or saw it flap away. During the Great Backyard Bird Count, when I zoomed in on what I thought was a Northern Mockingbird alighting in our olive tree, I was astonished to see a dark, hooked beak it was, rather, a Sharp-shinned Hawk tucked into the greenery. Then it, or another, appeared across the street, then a couple blocks down. Then, one morning, I saw it-a Sharp-shinned Hawk, on a branch, half-veiled by olive leaves, plucking, tearing and devouring a sparrow morsel-by-morsel, frequently looking up, then continuing its chore. Ah, were we harboring a hawk? Then I recalled a sudden flurry of wings and a possible pursuit by a dove-sized bird, but, unaware of how small hawks can be, I pooh-poohed this, attributing it to regular jostling at the feeder. They don’t know our boisterous lab has become senile. Had birds become ill? Poisoned? Had our house exterminator ventured too far into the yard? Cats? Not likely. Were birds happily feeding elsewhere on insects or naturally produced seeds and fruit? Perhaps.
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