N. Goshawk or Cooper's Hawk?

Sorry for the horrendous quality. Can anyone tell if this is a Northern Goshawk or a Cooper's Hawk? The Cooper's certainly is the more common species. I saw it flying over a small lake.

Thanks in advance

- Luke

Pretty tough call just based on the picture. Google images turns up an immature NG that could fit the bill. Yours also seems to just maybe have the red NG eye (as opposed to yellow cooper's).

Luke, it looks like a Cooper's Hawk to me. Most important, the coarse, orangey horizontal barring on the breast is indicative of an adult Coopers/Sharp-shinned. (all immature accipiters have vertical streaking on the breast, while an adult Goshawk would have finer gray horizontal barring.) Regarding eye color, immature accips have yellow eyes, adults have red eyes, regardless of the species.

As Cindy mentioned, Goshawks have a shorter-tailed appearance--structurally and proportionally they resemble a very large sharpie while the Coops have a long-tailed lanky look.

Hawks in Flight (by Dunne, Sutton and Sibley) is for me the classic text on hawk ID.

Hey Luke,

I'm with Cindy on this for the reasons already stated, and also because of the "gestalt" of the bird in the image compared to the Gos's and Cooper's I regularly see (didn't you know that all hard core birders actually rely on "gestalts" more than field guides?). I was an ornithologist long before I started playing with bears!

Cheers...

Brad

Thanks for the the reasoning - pretty impressive that such a crappy picture can yield so many clues to the birds identity. I'm not the owner of any Hawk ID books (I'd rather put my $$ toward camera gear...) but the holidays are coming up!

Cindy,

I appreciate your attempt to not confuse me... I may have had to google a few things but I think I got the gist (another G word). It is nice to see that birders go with their gut and ID based on experience and history, however I'd like to add a word of caution. Don't let birding expectations end up in the category of "gizz" as this can be quite problematic. This total mis-ID on my gyr falcon is a prime example...

Hey Cindy,

Love the quote - I guess I've been a gizzer for a good 30 years now (without knowing that was what I was called!).

Cheers...

Brad

PS: Can you zap me a quick email when you have time - no rush at all...

Just to clarify - what I meant was that all of the birders there (I can't attest to their knowledge with raports) but they have been at it for some time. The reason (from what I have read/understand) it was not identified as a gyr is that no one EXPECTED a gyr to be there as there hadn't been any reports and because of its similarities to the peregrine falcon. When the image was posted on here, no one had any assumptions as to what it should or should not be, and this certainly helped in getting the gyr ID correct.

Looks like an adult Cooper's to me.