Sharp-shinned Hawk

Accipiter striatus

The sharp-shinned hawk or northern sharp-shinned hawk, colloquially often nicknamed sharpie, is a small hawk, with males being the smallest hawks in the United States and Canada, but with the species averaging larger than some Neotropical species, such as the tiny hawk. The taxonomy is far from resolved, with some authorities considering the southern taxa to represent three separate species, white-breasted hawk, plain-breasted hawk, and rufous-thighed hawk. The American Ornithological Society and some other checklists keep all four species conspecific. A recent genetic study additionally recommended splitting the three Caribbean island populations as three additional separate species, though this has not yet been adopted by any of the ornithological authorities. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 17,373 times across 76 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 25°C (typically 21 to 28°C, from 24 areas).

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 23°N in June to 56°N in August, about 3,700 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.