Helpful features in telling this adult hawk from a Cooper's are the smaller head and bill, centrally placed eye which gives it a more 'innocent' look, stick-like legs (thinner than Cooper's), square-tipped tail (outer tail feathers about the same length as inner unlike the Coopers which has shorter outer tail feathers giving it a rounded tail look), and nape same color as crown and back instead of pale which gives the Cooper's a 'skull cap' look. The juvenile sharpie has a more prominent supercillium than the juvenile cooper's. Also the juvenile sharpie tends to have blurrier less crisp breast striping and a duskier tail tip compared to the cooper's more contrasty white tail tip.