canberrabirds

ID help please

Subject: ID help please
From: Ken Bissett <>
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 07:34:39 +0000
Many thanks to all who replied, we especially appreciated the detailed tips on how to distinguish the 2.  The consensus certainly was that the bird was a Brown Goshawk.

To those who commented on the photo itself I must admit that Jill took the photo, not me!

regards

Ken

On 2 December 2015 at 17:48, Alison Turner <> wrote:
I am really wondering if someone has the evidence that there really is two species or is it one species with variation between individuals( like humans)  . I got a number of photos of " both species " last year , but on reviewing the photos , the toe lengths were all over the place . 
Alison Turner 

Sent from my iPad

On 1 Dec 2015, at 10:51 pm, Michael Craig <> wrote:

Ken,

I would say this is a brown goshawk. There are 3 ways to tell them apart, none of which are particularly easy and two of them aren't visible in this photo. The first is that a goshawk has a tail that is rounded at the end whereas a sparrowhawk's is square (i.e straight across) at the end and typically has a little notch in the middle. The second is that sparrowhawks have legs that are much more slender than goshawks (and with a longer middle toe) and you can identify them on this alone with a bit of practice. The third way is that goshawks have a brow ridge whereas sparrowhawks don't. This means that sparrowhawks "stare" while goshawks "frown". As this beautiful bird definitely looks like he's frowning at us, I'd be confident this bird is a Brown Goshawk. Very nice photo!!

Cheers,
Mike


From: Ken Bissett
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 5:17 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] ID help please

is this a brown goshawk or collared sparrowhawk and how to tell the difference please.

thanks

Jill/Ken

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