One thing that struck me while volunteering with Hawkwatch in the Goshute Mountains was the range of color you can find in the eyes of an accipiter. While I had seen Coopers Hawks go from blue eyes as a nestling, to grey, then yellow, orange, and sometimes red, at ARC, I’d never had the chance to see so many colors in succession, up close, in the hand.

Every new Coop or Sharpie that came into the nets seemed to present a new shade of eye color, from caution-tape yellow, to pumpkin orange, and even blood red. Back home, flipping through the pictures on my phone, I realized just how many different shades there were – a veritable kaleidoscope of shining eyes glaring at me from the screen.

As nestlings, Coopers Hawks may have bluish-gray eyes, but by the time they fledge, they’ve already begun to change. By fall, when migration is in full swing, their eyes are more of a solid gray, or gray-yellowish color, as seen here on these juvenile participants in the raptor banding project.

After the grey of youth, accipiters eyes begin to turn a bright yellow color, which you can see on juveniles (left) or sometimes younger adults (right – although this one might be considered more of a yellow-orange).

Yellow eyes then give way to a stunning Orange color. You don’t really see the bright orange color in juveniles. Some female Coops’ eyes seem to max out at the Orange, or orange-red eye color, and don’t continue on to deep Red.

It seems to be mostly males that continue on to this vicious looking shade of red. Still, one thing I’ve learned about hawks is that you never say “always” and never say “never”.

Even with all those colors, that’s not even touching on the rainbow of intermediate shades their eyes can turn while changing from one color to the next.

Some of the birds that came into the nets still had a touch of the previous color. You can still see a bit of the yellow ring around the deep orange of these birds eyes.

And It’s not just Coopers Hawks that make this change – other accipiters like Sharp-shinned hawks also go through this kaleidoscope of eye shades.

Goshawks change their eye colors as well, but I didn’t have enough pictures of them up close to get a little square together. Maybe next time.