Where are the Towels ?
This young hawk got caught in a downpour and is looking around for something to use to dry off. Spreading of feathers is a normal method that many birds use to dry off after a rainstorm.
I ran this hawk photo through several AI bird sites. Sometimes I think birding sites just throw out the first thing that comes to their mind. I got three different species suggested. I often use a percentage approach in evaluating answers. If I ask five sites and three of them agree, there is a good chance they are right.
The prevailing opinion was that it was a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. Juvenile hawks can be difficult to identify, as often they look quite different from what they will look like in another year or two.
But juvenile Cooper’s Hawks have yellowish colored eyes during their first year, which matches this hawk’s eye color. Those eyes will gradually darken to red as they mature.
The Cooper’s Hawk species in Minnesota is called a partial migrant, meaning that not all individual hawks leave our state for the winter. They tend to stay year-round more in southern Minnesota, while hawks in the northern part of Minnesota head south, wintering as far south as Honduras.
(Photographed near Cambridge, MN)
Where are the Towels ?
This young hawk got caught in a downpour and is looking around for something to use to dry off. Spreading of feathers is a normal method that many birds use to dry off after a rainstorm.
I ran this hawk photo through several AI bird sites. Sometimes I think birding sites just throw out the first thing that comes to their mind. I got three different species suggested. I often use a percentage approach in evaluating answers. If I ask five sites and three of them agree, there is a good chance they are right.
The prevailing opinion was that it was a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. Juvenile hawks can be difficult to identify, as often they look quite different from what they will look like in another year or two.
But juvenile Cooper’s Hawks have yellowish colored eyes during their first year, which matches this hawk’s eye color. Those eyes will gradually darken to red as they mature.
The Cooper’s Hawk species in Minnesota is called a partial migrant, meaning that not all individual hawks leave our state for the winter. They tend to stay year-round more in southern Minnesota, while hawks in the northern part of Minnesota head south, wintering as far south as Honduras.
(Photographed near Cambridge, MN)