I am brand new to birding having gotten interested because of the barred owl who lives in my neighborhood. I just started using the Merlin app which has been amazing.
Unfortunately I cannot conclusively identify this bird I saw this morning while on a walk from the pictures or sound clips in Merlin. Audio id is suggesting Cooper's Hawk, and picture id is suggesting Red Tailed Hawk. Neither sounds enough like the audio clips for me to be sure. Can someone help?
Details:
Woodruff Place, Indianapolis Indiana around 7 am July 29, 2023 about 20 feet up in a tree
It was sitting there calling and was still there 10 minutes later when I walked back the other way
Is that a nest to the left of the bird in the picture??? I saw two individuals that were around the same size on opposite sides of the same branch.
Audio file
Any guidance would be appreciated. Apologies for the grainy picture - had only iphone. Thanks in advance!
It is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. Adults have a reddish brown and white breast with a horizontal scaly looking pattern. Juvie's like this one have dark, vertically oriented, teardrop shaped markings on white.
I'm a fairly new birder as well but agree that this looks like either a Cooper's hawk or an immature red-shouldered hawk to me (again I'm pretty new). Heres a picture of the Cooper's hawk I saw in southwestern Ohio for comparison! Hope this helped
Update: this bird was in the same place when I went back today. The thing that sort of looked like a nest was no longer there, so I'm guessing it wasn't one. A neighbor says it's a Cooper's hawk, but the sound clips I listed to in Merlin did not match the one I recorded with my original post, so a real birder's id would be so helpful. Thank you!
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