[cobirds] New Yard Bird(s)?

Birders,

This morning, my wife ran to find me as I was shaving: "There's a hawk on our deck! I heard a crash, and there's a hawk on the deck!". So, mid-swipe, I ran down and, lo-and-behold there was a rear-on view of a medium-sized hawk. It certainly WASN'T a red-tail (wrong kind of tail). To complicate matters, another hawk (friend? mate? sibling? was on the lawn about 20 feet away. As I went to grab a camera, they took off.

So, the debate commenced. Sibley consulted, as was my go-too guide, the old 4th edition National Geographic. Inconclusive. The main confusing piece was the tail. There were only about 3 bars on the tail (gray, with black barring). My suspicion is Cooper's, although Swainson's might also have been possible (although the guides show more bars on the Swainson's tail). Both, according to eBird (and my own observations) are possible in the area at this time.

So, what I need from the collective wisdom of the Cobird community is: why would hawks be traveling in pairs? I've never seen that before. Would one of the above species be more likely than the other to behave in that way? Would they be mates? Siblings? Parent and offspring? (My wife suspected that the bird on the lawn was the one that hit the deck, or deck rail, and the other simply waited for it to recover before they both departed, but that doesn't necessarily answer the question about the relationship between the two).

Then, a little later this afternoon (after the big rain storm), my son noticed that one of the hawks was back in the yard (well, on our yard-fence).

Thoughts?

Gary Brower
near Havana and Belleview
Englewood, CO

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