Accipiter gentilis II

This is a juvenile. Goshawk adults, who settle into their plumage by their third year, have blue-grey backs and gray fronts. They’re unmistakable; I’ve never seen one. These yearlings, on the other wing, look like they could be mistaken for a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. This is a bigger bird than a Cooper’s, but sizing can be tricky without something to compare it to. It so happened that while I was watching this bird atop Lookout Hill, a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) appeared. (I’d heard that these two had been seen sparring earlier.) The Gos chased it across the butterfly meadow. This Gos is Buteo-sized.
Note this long Accipiter shape. And these first two pictures give a good view of the brown patch on the auricular, underneath the eye to the right. The partial dark malar mark, which Wheeler says most juveniles will have, is a little harder to see underneath the eye.

Bill McKibben remembers the lessons Jonathan Schell drew from the 20th century. “Violence is the method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.”