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Sunshine thru the moss

A question I get a lot is “how do you tell female Cooper’s Hawks apart from males?” Key features are eye color (red-orange for females, blood red for males), auriculars/“cheek” color (tan in females, gray in males), back color (warm gray in females, blue-gray in males), plus look at head shape - female has longer skull, male has shorter bill.

Young males can have coloration similar to females (tan auriculars and orange iris) and very old females can get those blood-red eyes so paying attention to all of these features together is the key! Bill shape and relative size of the eye to the head are both crucial. Since males have smaller, daintier skulls overall, they sometimes look like they have larger eyes than females (although I admit that’s not as obvious in this illustration).