Oh the heck with it! Unidentified Accipiter.

[urbpan]

I was positive when I encountered this bird, perched above my car, conspicuously near my neighbor's birdfeeders, that I was seeing my first definite sharp-shinned hawk Accipiter striatus. I've seen plenty of Cooper's hawks Accipiter cooperii, a slightly larger dead ringer for the sharp-shinned. Females of both species are much larger than males, so male Coops and female sharpies actually come pretty close to the same size. The bird pictured here is just an inch or so longer than a blue jay. I still think it's a sharpie, but when you're talking with bird people you'd better have a DNA sample handy if you want to avoid a controversy