What was it?

by Stella
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada )

I live in Central Etobicoke, Ontario, in a home that backs onto a small park which is used for baseball and soccer, with only a few trees.

This morning I was sitting in my kitchen watching the birds at my feeder, and all of a sudden a large hawk-like bird swooped down out of nowhere to attack the sparrows.

It had yellowish legs. It's chest was a dull cinnamon colour with speckles throughout and it's back was a brownish colour.

It perched in my lilac bush for a while and then flew off.

In the fall, I found a baby rabbit lying in my yard with it's head cleanly severed and nowhere around, and wonder if it was the same bird that had killed it.

I have also seen the same kind of bird go after squirrels in my yard.

If anyone can identify it for me, that would be great!

Hi there, thanks for sending this to us - I hope you don't mind, but I didn't want to publish your email address here - who knows what kind of junk mail you might get, but I hope one of our readers might know what your mystery bird is!

I'm thinking that it might be a Cooper's Hawk, which you can see here at the Bird Forum - Cooper's Hawk.