Eurasian Sparrowhawk

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has slate-gray upperparts, sometimes bluish
2. Male has fine red barring on underparts, appearing orangish at a distance
3. Female has dark brown or gray-brown upperparts and rufous barring on underparts
4. Wings short and broad; tail long and square, with a straight tip

Male, female and young

Female up to a quarter larger than male; male has blue-gray upperparts, while female and juvenile have rufous upperparts.

Similar species

Eurasian Goshawk

Eurasian Sparrowhawk is smaller and more slender, with shorter wings, a square, straight-ended tail and faster wingbeats.

Besra

An easily confused species in China, but the melaschistos subspecies of Eurasian Sparrowhawk is much larger.

Shikra

Eurasian Sparrowhawk is larger than Shikra and has a different call.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: September–October · Most records: United Kingdom, Spain, China

Eurasian Sparrowhawk has been recorded at 2,614 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 95 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Algeciras – Observatorio de AlgarroboSpain4,650 records
2. Observatorio de CazallaSpain3,961 records
3. LindusSpain2,885 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United KingdomSpainChinaIsraelSwedenPortugalGermanyTürkiye

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), also known as the northern sparrowhawk or simply the sparrowhawk, is a small bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Adult male Eurasian sparrowhawks have bluish grey upperparts and orange-barred underparts; females and juveniles are brown above with brown barring below. The female is up to 25% larger than the male – one of the greatest size differences between the sexes in any bird species.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions