Hawking

It is Goshawk season, and when the sun shines, the birds are very active, re-establishing territories and booting out last year's young. As well as the aerial displays, the females have a tendency to sit conspicuously at this time of year, scanning the skies for intruding birds and can be located from a distance, like a vertical white streak in the trees. Last week, a real unit of a second calendar-year female was causing chaos in one of the regular territories I check, with the territory-holding adult sparring with her and chasing her rapidly across the valley. There was much stiff-winged display sometimes at impressive altitude. Yesterday, the young bird was flying about unchallenged and sitting prominently in the conifers. This was interesting; had she displaced the territory-holding female? Females compete for prime breeding territories and skilled males, so this is possible; they sometimes even kill each other. A young male, potentially this bird's sibling, was cruising around too, giving great views, even eyeing us as he circled overhead in an azure sky. Soon, the breeding females will go down on their nests and activity will reduce, with birds being more difficult to see until the young fledge later in the summer. For now, the activity is intense and exciting and great to watch. 

 

 

Top: Second calendar-year female Goshawk. Below, three shots of the same second calendar-year male who circled overhead looking down at us with suspicion. The streaked breast, mottled upperparts, indistinct head patterns and heavily barred and uniform secondaries help age these birds.