All, Thanks for the great responses.
I'm pretty sure, given what y'all have said, and from what I remember of the bird(s), that we had Coopers. We never got a look anything but the backs of the birds, and a clear shot at one of the tails. They were (now that I look again at Sibley) both immatures, given the coloration. They were both too large to be Sharpies. But, in the six years we've lived here, we've never seen anything like it! I have seen accipiters flying through the neighborhood over that time, but never as close as this. Again, thanks, wise folks! Gary Brower Englewood, CO On Aug 7, 2014, at 6:53 PM, Gary Brower <[email protected]> wrote: > Birders, > > This morning, my wife ran to find me as I was shaving: "There's a hawk on > our deck! I heard a crash, and there's a hawk on the deck!". So, mid-swipe, > I ran down and, lo-and-behold there was a rear-on view of a medium-sized > hawk. It certainly WASN'T a red-tail (wrong kind of tail). To complicate > matters, another hawk (friend? mate? sibling? was on the lawn about 20 feet > away. As I went to grab a camera, they took off. > > So, the debate commenced. Sibley consulted, as was my go-too guide, the old > 4th edition National Geographic. Inconclusive. The main confusing piece was > the tail. There were only about 3 bars on the tail (gray, with black > barring). My suspicion is Cooper's, although Swainson's might also have been > possible (although the guides show more bars on the Swainson's tail). Both, > according to eBird (and my own observations) are possible in the area at this > time. > > So, what I need from the collective wisdom of the Cobird community is: why > would hawks be traveling in pairs? I've never seen that before. Would one > of the above species be more likely than the other to behave in that way? > Would they be mates? Siblings? Parent and offspring? (My wife suspected > that the bird on the lawn was the one that hit the deck, or deck rail, and > the other simply waited for it to recover before they both departed, but that > doesn't necessarily answer the question about the relationship between the > two). > > Then, a little later this afternoon (after the big rain storm), my son > noticed that one of the hawks was back in the yard (well, on our yard-fence). > > Thoughts? > > Gary Brower > near Havana and Belleview > Englewood, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/18B64E41-E9B4-4FA0-B488-9D073F034B89%40comcast.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
