Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk? How to Tell Them Apart

Cooper's Hawks and Sharp-shinned Hawks are two of the hardest North American birds to tell apart. They have very similar colors at every age, both hunt small birds by surprise, and both turn up at backyard feeders. A Sharp-shinned is smaller, but a big female Sharp-shinned comes close to a small male Cooper's. This page sets out what does separate them: size, head, tail, legs, adults, young birds, flight, what they take at feeders and where you see them. For each bird in full, see the Cooper's Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk guides.

No single mark settles it, so look for several together.¹ A Cooper's Hawk is about crow-sized, with a big head that sticks out well ahead of the wings when it glides, a long, rounded tail with a broad white tip, and thick legs. A Sharp-shinned is about the size of a jay, with a small head that barely shows past the wings, a square-tipped tail with a narrow white tip, and pencil-thin legs.^{2, 3, 4, 1}

On adults, look at the head: a Cooper's wears a dark cap over a paler nape, a Sharp-shinned a gray hood with little contrast. On young birds, look at the streaks: fine and crisp on a Cooper's, heavy, blurry and often reddish all the way down on a Sharp-shinned. If you still can't tell, birders record it as "Sharp-shinned/Cooper's Hawk".¹

A male Sharp-shinned is about the size of an American Kestrel or a jay. A Cooper's Hawk is about the size of a crow, though males are much smaller than females.^{3, 5} In both, females are much bigger than males. The Sharp-shinned is the most extreme North American bird of prey in this: a male averages only 57% of a female's weight.²

So the closest pair is a big female Sharp-shinned and a small male Cooper's. Even then they do not overlap in length: a female Sharp-shinned is 11.4–13.4 inches (29–34 cm) long, a male Cooper's 14.6–15.3 inches (37–39 cm). Their weights almost touch: a female Sharp-shinned weighs up to 7.7 ounces (218 g), a male Cooper's from 7.8 ounces (220 g).^{2, 5, 6} A male Sharp-shinned is only 9.4–10.6 inches (24–27 cm) long and 3.1–4.0 ounces (87–114 g).²

When it glides, a Cooper's Hawk's big head sticks out well ahead of the bend of the wings; a Sharp-shinned's small head barely shows past them. Perched, a Cooper's head looks large, often with the nape feathers raised.^{4, 3}

A Cooper's tail is rounded at the tip, because the middle feathers are the longest, and usually has a broad white tip. A Sharp-shinned's tail is shorter for its size, square at the tip when folded and sometimes notched, with a narrow white tip.^{1, 2} Take care with a spread tail: fanned out, a Sharp-shinned's can look rounded too. The white tip can also wear off. And many adult male Cooper's Hawks have a nearly square tail, like a Sharp-shinned's, so on the closest pair in size, a big female Sharp-shinned and a small male Cooper's, use the head and legs as well.⁴

A Sharp-shinned has long, pencil-thin legs. The lower leg is flattened from side to side into a thin edge, which is where the name "sharp-shinned" comes from. A Cooper's Hawk's legs are noticeably thicker.^{2, 1}

Adults of both are blue-gray above with rusty bars on a white breast, a banded tail and orange to red eyes, and females are browner above than males.^{4, 2} The difference is on the head. A Cooper's Hawk has a dark cap that stands out against a paler gray nape, as if it wore a beret. A Sharp-shinned's crown is little darker than its nape and back, so it looks hooded.^{1, 2}

Young birds of both are brown above and white below with dark streaks, with yellow eyes.² A young Cooper's Hawk has fine, crisp dark streaks, mostly on the upper breast, and a lower belly that is mostly white. A young Sharp-shinned has heavier, blurrier streaks and spots, often reddish brown, all the way down the breast, belly and flanks, a stronger pale eyebrow, and less white on the tail tip.^{1, 2} More on each in juvenile Cooper's Hawks and juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawks.

Both fly with a few quick wingbeats and a glide. A Sharp-shinned's flight looks lighter, more buoyant and fluttery, and when it glides it often holds its tail cocked up a little.^{4, 3} Both hunt mostly by surprise, with a short burst of speed from cover. A Sharp-shinned does not dive on prey from high overhead;^{2, 3} a Cooper's sometimes does, out in the open.⁴

Both hunt at backyard feeders, and both are often misidentified there. FeederWatchers logged 1,186 cases of a Cooper's Hawk eating a bird at their feeders between October 2015 and April 2022, and 677 for the Sharp-shinned. The Sharp-shinned mostly took small birds such as juncos and Pine Siskins; the Cooper's took some small birds, but mainly medium and larger ones such as European Starlings and pigeons. In a photo quiz in the same study, people called a Cooper's Hawk "Sharp-shinned" 18% of the time, and a Sharp-shinned "Cooper's" 27% of the time.^{7, 8}

A Sharp-shinned is a bird specialist: birds make up about 90% of its prey, and most weigh under 1.4 ounces (40 g), such as warblers, sparrows and juncos, up to the size of a robin.² If a hawk keeps hunting at your feeders, take them down for a couple of weeks: it will move on, and the songbirds will come back.³

Sharp-shinned Hawks nest in deep, dense forest and are very secretive while nesting. You are most likely to see one on fall migration, when it is the most numerous hawk at many hawkwatches, or at a feeder in winter. More than 11,000 were counted passing Cape May Point, New Jersey, on one October day.^{3, 2}

Cooper's Hawks nest in woods, towns and backyards, and since the 1970s have become common in suburbs and cities, so in much of the country one can be around all year.⁴ For the Cooper's Hawk's other lookalike, see Cooper's Hawk or Red-tailed Hawk?

Both are quiet for most of the year and call mainly near the nest. A Cooper's Hawk's alarm is a loud kak-kak-kak; a Sharp-shinned's kek-kek-kek is higher, thinner and possibly faster.² Below, a young Cooper's Hawk calls after flying in to a perch.⁹

Partners in Flight estimates about 1 million breeding birds of each species.^{3, 5} Both were once widely shot: thousands of Sharp-shinned Hawks were shot at Cape May Point and Hawk Mountain in the early 1900s. Both declined in the DDT years and recovered after the pesticide was banned in 1972.^{2, 3, 4}

Both are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act: killing, capturing or keeping one, or taking its nest or eggs, is illegal without a federal permit.^{10, 11}

The oldest known wild Sharp-shinned Hawk, on the Bird Banding Laboratory's longevity list, was a male at least 12 years 2 months old, caught and released in Minnesota in 2009, ten years after he was banded there.¹² The oldest known wild Cooper's Hawk was at least 20 years 4 months: a male banded in California in 1986 and found dead in Washington in 2006.¹³

1. Project FeederWatch. Tricky Bird ID: Sharp-shinned Hawk and Cooper's Hawk. Project FeederWatch (Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada). Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
2. Bildstein, K. L., Meyer, K. D., White, C. M., Marks, J. S., Kirwan, G. M. (2020). Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), version 1.0. Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman et al., editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.shshaw.01
3. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Sharp-shinned Hawk. All About Birds. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
4. Rosenfield, R. N., Madden, K. K., Bielefeldt, J., Curtis-Scott, O. E. (2025). Cooper's Hawk (Astur cooperii), version 1.2. Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.coohaw.01.2
5. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Cooper's Hawk. All About Birds. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
6. National Audubon Society. Cooper's Hawk. Guide to North American Birds. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
7. Borgmann, K. What's for dinner? Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks pick different foods. Project FeederWatch (Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada). Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
8. Miller, E. T., Mac Aodha, O., Greig, E. I., Bonter, D. N., Hochachka, W. M. (2022). Congeneric predators fill niches created by the relative abundance of their prey species. Journal of Avian Biology: e02934. doi:10.1111/jav.02934
9. bungelina (2020). Cooper's Hawk calls, Farm Hills, Redwood City, California, 15 February 2020. iNaturalist sound 57880. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
10. United States Code. 16 U.S.C. 703: Taking, killing, or possessing migratory birds unlawful. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
11. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 50 CFR 10.13: List of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
12. USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. Longevity records of North American birds: Sharp-shinned Hawk. USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center, Bird Banding Laboratory. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source
13. USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. Longevity records of North American birds. USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center, Bird Banding Laboratory. Accessed 30 October 2026. Source