I have trouble distinguishing between Sharp-shinned Hawks (sometimes called “sharpies”) and Cooper’s Hawks (coopies?). Don’t get me wrong: I’ve read up on how to tell the difference — sharpies are smaller, with a smaller head, smaller feet, and a square tail — but I’m usually so excited to be watching or photographing one of those birds that I forget in the moment to look for the signs.

And I even had time with this particular bird, which I spotted on a fence post as I was driving to a nearby wildlife refuge. I pulled the van over, rolled down my window, and took several shots from the roadside. It never spooked. Just quietly turned its head from side to side. Through it all, I forgot to look at its feet and its tail, forgot to find a bird of the other species to compare it to. Still, I think it’s a coopie. It reminds me of the juvenile Cooper’s Hawk that hung out in our yard last winter, eyeing our chickens. (You can see some photos in my gallery.)

I think I’ve mentioned before that I trust my wife’s judgement of my photographs more than I trust my own. If she doesn’t like a picture I don’t publish it. This is one of the rare exceptions. She doesn’t like how the bird is so obviously framed by a distant tree. To be honest, neither do I. But I like the rest of the photo enough that I decided to share.

Location: Washington County, Oregon

Exposure: 1/320 second, f/9, ISO 800

Focal Length: 850 mml

Gear:

• Camera: Nikon D750

• Lens: Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary with a 1.4x teleconverter