Accipiter nisus

Eurasian Sparrowhawk

Main author: Jaime Miralles de Imperial, October 2025.

Supplemented by: Marc Illa, October 2025.

Citation: Ottenby Bird Observatory. 2015. Ringers’ DigiGuide – Accipiter nisus. www.ringersdigiguide.ottenby.se

MOULT

                     Adult         Young

Summer       SC*              –

Winter           –                 –

Young: Most young birds retain the juv plumage until their first post-br moult as 2cy, but some individuals may replace few feathers on back and legs during the winter.
Adult SC*: The post-br moult starts in May-Jul and usually includes the complete plumage. Moult is often suspended during breeding, and is typically completed by Sep-Oct. The moult sequence is as follows: P10 is typically the first wing feather to be moulted, and moult progresses outwards in the PP. At some point during PP moult, moult in the SS commences in 2-3 moult centres. These moult centres are typically located at S1, S5 and S10, and the moult progresses inwards in the case of S1 and S5, and divergently (i.e. in both directions) in the case of S10. This species is often in active moult during autumn migration (some birds at Ottenby have been found to be in active wing moult as late as mid-Nov). Furthermore, sometimes single or several feathers are retained and left unmoulted, both in 2cy birds and older individuals. This retention regularly involves some SS (usually those last ones to be moulted in the regular sequence), often some wing-c or tail-c and sometimes RR.

AGE:

Autumn

SEX:

Autumn

Ringers’ DigiGuide is sponsored by:

About cookies

Here you can read more about which cookies are being set.

Functional

Functional cookies come from the current website (ringersdigiguide.ottenby.se) and place cookies in the visitor's browser. Functional cookies help make the website usable by enabling basic functions and saving the choices you make. Functional cookies are always enabled to ensure the website functions as optimally as possible.

[moove_gdpr_popup]
This cookie is used by GDPR Cookies Compliance to store cookie consent preferences.
Placed by: ringersdigiguide.ottenby.se
Expiration: 365 days

[elementor]
This cookie is used by Elementor to store performed actions on the website.
Placed by: ringersdigiguide.ottenby.se
Expiration: Persistent

[wp-api-schema-model*]
This cookie is used by Wordpress.
Placed by: ringersdigiguide.ottenby.se
Expiration: Session