Answer:

It perched high above my pool and surveyed my backyard for about 5 minutes before flying off down the street. It’s a smallish juvenile raptor, and is missing some of the field marks that are typically used to identify adult individuals of this species. The head and tail shape are especially important to pay attention to.

Being an inexperienced birder, it took me a few days and a lot of pictures from different angles to definitively identify this raptor. The brown teardrop pattern displayed prominently on the chest feathers stood out to me especially, so my identification started there. My initial hypothesis was a Sharp-shinned Hawk, as they have a similar feather pattern when juvenile and striped tail feathers. However, the thicker feet/legs of the bird indicated to me that I was likely incorrect. This characteristic, combined with the blockier head and graduated tail feathers I spotted when the bird fanned its tail while perching, led me to my final identification: juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. I confirmed my identification even further by checking eBird to see if there were any Cooper’s Hawks reported in my area, and there were several from the past few days. I also listened to/recorded the calls of the young hawks, then compared them to the calls on the ID page of the Audubon app. I observed a total of three juveniles that had recently fledged from a nest in my neighbor’s tree; it was delightful to observe their antics for a few weeks during my summer break.

Congratulations to Henry M., Charles, Garrett, Lily, and Adrian for identifying this as a Cooper’s Hawk!