The cold continues to settle in, and the breeze is holding steady, so we had a wind-chill of a brisk 1°F this morning in Estabrook Park. Happily, the sun was out, at least for a while, so all that fresh ice floating down river looked nice and sparkly.
The critters continue to be fairly few and far between, unfortunately, so I didn’t take any pictures until I reached the pond. There, as I searched through the house sparrows and house finches in the bushes on the island, for someone more interesting, I could just make out the shape of a larger bird on the back side, which I thought looked about the size of a robin or a mourning dove. I also thought I could see the fringe of a light-colored belly, however, which would rule them out, so who could it be?
Thus, I hustled around to the east side for a better look, and I could hardly believe my luck once I did. There, posing nearly as nicely as its larger cousin just yesterday, was only the third sharp-shinned hawk I believe I’ve ever seen.
Here are the two birds side-by-side in my best attempt to scale the pictures the same, with the Coop from yesterday on the left, and the sharpy from today on the right. Of course, there is no way for me to know exactly how far away from each bird I was, so I could be exaggerating a bit. Nevertheless, in both species, the female is larger than the male, and in sharpies, “females are one-third larger than males.” Thus, a male sharpy could be nearly half the size of a female Coop: 24 cm vs 45 cm.
The heads on Coops are supposed to be relatively larger than the heads on sharpies, which also fits the pictures, but there are always vagaries with how they are holding their heads at any moment.
Finally, the one difference that is pretty clear in the pictures is the tail shape. In the Coop, you can see how the feathers get shorter towards the outer edges, so the tail will appear rounded when the feathers are fanned, while the sharpy feathers that are visible, despite that stupid stick in the way, are the outer ones, and they are the same length, if not longer than the central ones behind them. Thus, the tail will appear less rounded when the feathers are fanned.
I think that’s enough exposition for today.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 