Looking for something... found something else!

I purposely arrived at (Flinders) uni  4 hours early today so that I could go for a walk around campus to make a list of the birds, and was especially looking for a Tawny Frogmouth as I've seen them around the uni in the past. I was hoping that if I looked for long enough I might happen across one. But, as often happens, I didn't find what I was looking for, but instead saw something else.

Walking along the lake path, near the Earth Sciences building, I saw a flash of grey land in a nearby tree. I hurried over, thinking that perhaps a sleeping Frogmouth had been harassed out of a nearby tree and had chosen to land here. But it wasn't a Tawny, it was....

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Juvenile Collared Sparrowhawk, Flinders University, March 2016

A Collared Sparrowhawk! This isn't a lifer for me, but I always enjoy seeing raptors, especially when I can get this close to them. For my non-birder friends, you can tell that it's a juvenile by the pattern of the barring on it's front. The juveniles have these dark brown "V" markings, with dark brown streaks continuing right up the neck. Adults have finer, pale rufous bars.

Collared Sparrowhawks are very similar in appearance to Brown Goshawks, the main differences being size (CS measures 29-39cm, BG measures 40-50cm), tail tip shape (CS has a square-shaped tail, BG has a rounded tail), and lastly, and most interesting to me, is that the Brown Goshawk has a "heavier hooded brow", which makes it appear to have an evil glare, whereas the CS lacks the brow ridge and merely looks "fierce"(Morcombe 2004). I don't think I would want to mess with either of them!

Reference:
Morcombe, M (2004), Field Guide to Australian Birds, complete compact edition, Steve Parish Publishing, Archerfield, pp. 90-91.