Northern Goshawk/Coopers Eric Ellingson 7/16/13

This photo was previously posted here but cropped so as not to see the size of the tree it’s on.
The consensus was that it was Coopers. I reluctantly agreed even though it seemed much bigger than others I’d seen.
However the Length and Wing Span are very close to being the same on a large Coopers and a small Northern Goshawk.


Sharing this photo with someone else recently they replied:

“Gorgeous Immature northern goshawk
note the faint white eye stripe above the eye.
note the furthermost outside tail feather.
The coopers hawk has no eye stripe and that outside tail feather is shorter yet, yielding a much rounder end of the tail.

THANK YOU FOR SHARING
Bret “

Another opinion on a difficult ID. Hope this helps someone else too.
If I can only learn to ID all the little brown birds and notice such distinctions

Eric