Eurasian sparrowhawk
Accipiter nisus
A small woodland hawk with short wings and a long tail. Confirmed in Georgia as a year-round resident and passage migrant on the 2024 national bird checklist.
Overview
What is Eurasian sparrowhawk
The Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) is a small woodland hawk confirmed in Georgia as a year-round resident and a passage migrant. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia codes it YR-R; M: a breeder present throughout the year, and also a bird of passage in spring and autumn. Seasonality is classed as high-quality (code A). Occurrence quality is high (H), with photographic evidence. The usual Georgian name is მიმინო; ქორი is a different species (northern goshawk). Adults are about 29–41 cm long at species level; females are clearly larger than males. It is not a threat to people. IUCN lists the species as Least Concern. The 2024 checklist assigns the same category nationally.
Last updated
Gallery
Eurasian sparrowhawk in photos
Photo: Charles J. Sharp
Cumnor Hill, Oxfordshire ·
Photo: Charles J. Sharp
near Kecskemét ·
Photo: Meneer Zjeroen
Betuwe, Gelderland ·
Photo: Christian Knoch
Photo: Martin Mecnarowski
Herálec ·
Identification
How to identify Eurasian sparrowhawk
A small hawk with short broad wings, a long tail, and yellow eyes. The male is blue-grey above with rufous barring below; the female is larger and browner. In Georgia the usual confusion is Levant sparrowhawk on migration and northern goshawk by size.
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Silhouette: short, rounded wings and a long, almost square-ended tail. Flight is flap-flap-glide, not the pointed wings of a falcon. The adult eye is yellow to orange; the legs are long and yellow. Length about 29–41 cm at species level. Males about 29–34 cm and 105–196 g, females 35–41 cm and 185–350 g — among the largest size gaps between the sexes in raptors. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
- 02
The male is slate blue-grey above, with rufous-barred cheeks and breast; the underparts can look plain orange at a distance. The female is dark brown or grey-brown above, brown-barred below, often with a clearer supercilium. Juveniles resemble the female but the barring is coarser or blotchy, and the eye is paler yellow. Juveniles usually lack a dark mid-throat stripe — a Levant sparrowhawk mark.
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Levant sparrowhawk (Accipiter brevipes; IOC now Tachyspiza brevipes) is a breeding migrant in Georgia on the 2024 checklist (BB; M) and is VU on the national Red List. It has more pointed wings, dark wing-tips, a less barred underwing, and a dark adult eye, not yellow. It often migrates in flocks; Eurasian sparrowhawk usually passes singly. Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis; IOC Astur gentilis) is much bulkier, with broader wings, a white supercilium, and a more rounded tail. Shikra (Accipiter badius) is casual (Cas) on the checklist; field identification is specialist. Kestrel and hobby are pointed-winged falcons, not hawks. This atlas does not yet have separate pages for those lookalikes.
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It is not a threat to people. Leave it alone. A small hawk appearing suddenly in a Georgian garden or park is more likely this species than a goshawk.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
This page does not colour a municipality-by-municipality map. The 2024 checklist confirms country-level resident and migrant status but does not publish a regional gazetteer. Do not assume it occurs evenly across Georgia, including treeless high plateaus. Abuladze (2011, 2013) treats it in Georgia as a common forest breeder, a widespread passage migrant, and a winter visitor, with wintering birds often in towns and villages. Named locality: the Agency of Protected Areas lists the species among raptors of Batsara-Babaneuri Protected Areas (Akhmeta Municipality). In autumn the eastern Black Sea bottleneck near Batumi (Sakhalvasho, Shuamta) is a main watchpoint; birds pass low and solitarily there, so complete counts are difficult. Species-level habitat is woodland — deciduous, coniferous, or mixed — with forest edge, parks, orchards, and urban greenery from which it hunts by surprise. A separate national elevation band for Georgia is not published here.
Diet
There is no separate Georgian diet study on this page. Across the range it takes almost exclusively birds: males smaller prey (tits, finches, sparrows), females larger (thrushes and thrush-sized birds; occasionally a pigeon). Small mammals appear rarely in species-level literature; that is not a measured Georgian menu. It hunts by surprise, a short dash from cover, often at garden feeders or woodland edge. It is not food for people.
Behavior
It is active by day. Flight is a flap-flap-glide; the silhouette is T-shaped, with a long, almost square-ended tail and blunt wing-tips. It is highly manoeuvrable in trees. The call is a sharp, rapid kek-kek-kek or similar series, more often around the nest; prey alarm calls are often heard first. Do not handle it. The nest is a stick platform in a tree. Species-level clutches are usually four to five eggs, with incubation of about a month; those figures are from the wider range, not a Georgian nest sample on this page. The 2024 checklist treats the species as a breeding resident in Georgia. Northern populations are migratory; southern birds are more sedentary. Georgia has both: local breeders and a passage flow, especially in autumn at the Batumi bottleneck.
Conservation
BirdLife International assesses Accipiter nisus as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, with a stable trend. The 2024 Georgian bird checklist assigns global and national Red List category LC. A current national census is not given on this page. Abuladze’s 2011 summary spoke of several hundred breeding pairs; that is a period estimate, not a new national count. The 2014 Georgian Red List (Decree No. 190) includes Levant sparrowhawk (Accipiter brevipes, VU), not this species. Accipiter nisus still appears on state wildlife-accounting lists. Documented local pressures are illegal shooting and traditional trapping for falconry in Ajara at the Batumi bottleneck. Do not catch wild birds without a permit. Globally, organochlorine pesticides once thinned eggshells; after bans, many populations recovered. That is not a Georgian monitoring series.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the most important questions about Eurasian sparrowhawk.
Yes. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia lists it as a confirmed year-round resident and passage migrant (YR-R; M).
In woodland, forest edge, parks, and towns, where it hunts small birds. It is named for Batsara-Babaneuri Protected Areas. In autumn the Batumi migration bottleneck is a main watchpoint, though birds pass singly. This page does not map every region.
Short broad wings, long tail, yellow eye, flap-flap-glide. Male blue-grey above with rufous-barred breast; female larger and browner. Levant sparrowhawk has a dark eye and more pointed wings; goshawk is much bulkier.
About 29–41 cm at species level. Females are clearly larger than males (about 185–350 g versus 105–196 g). A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
Mainly small birds. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
All year as a resident, plus spring and autumn passage, according to the 2024 checklist.
Yes. YR-R on the 2024 checklist means resident breeder.
It is harmless. It is globally Least Concern and coded LC nationally on the 2024 checklist. It is not on the 2014 Georgian Red List (Levant sparrowhawk is VU there). Do not catch wild birds.
- Budagashvili & Javakhishvili 2024 — The birds of Georgia (Sandgrouse 46)
- Abuladze 2011 — Accipiter hawks in Georgia (Birds of Prey and Owls in Caucasus)
- Abuladze 2013 — Birds of Prey of Georgia
- Hoekstra et al. 2020 — Batumi Raptor Count (British Birds)
- Wehrmann et al. 2019 — Batumi Raptor Count data paper (ZooKeys)
- Sándor et al. — Raptor shooting in the Batumi bottleneck (OSME)
- APA — ბაწარა-ბაბანეურის დაცული ტერიტორიები
- BirdLife DataZone — Eurasian Sparrowhawk
- IUCN Red List — Accipiter nisus
- IOC World Bird List
- Avibase — Georgia bird checklist
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- FAOLEX — გარეულ ცხოველთა სახეობების ჯგუფების ნუსხა
- EUNIS — Accipiter nisus
- RSPB — Sparrowhawk
- Meyburg, Marks, Garcia & Perlman — Birds of the World (Accipiter nisus)
- Wikimedia Commons — male, Cumnor Hill (Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — female, Kecskemét (Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — perched, Betuwe (Meneer Zjeroen, CC BY 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — in flight from below (Christian Knoch, CC BY-SA 2.0 de)
- Wikimedia Commons — Herálec (Martin Mecnarowski, CC BY-SA 3.0)
- xeno-canto XC1164691 — Accipiter nisus (David Darrell-Lambert, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
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