First strategy: looking for the breeding male

On 13 June 2012 I was waiting at my usual 'white edge' watchpoint (at the top of a near vertical exposure of slumped shaley rock, without trees and so giving a wide view across the valley to the opposite ridge and hills beyond), hoping to catch sight of one of the local  Honey-buzzards.  Suddenly a medium sized raptor flew fast and low overhead parallel with the edge I was sitting on.  Dark against the bright sky I could only see it was an Accipiter and that it was clutching prey, possibly a Blackbird Turdus merula.  Although I didn't get a firm ID I guessed, because of the apparent size relative to the prey, and the fact that it was heading up the valley toward the Goshawk nest site just a couple of hundred metres away (but out of sight), that the hawk was possibly the male of the breeding pair.

Just a few minutes later I was still enjoying the satisfaction of a close encounter with a raptor, while inwardly wishing I'd seen more detail of it, when a medium sized raptor rocketed down the valley in front of me, rose in fast circles above the skyline of the opposite ridge, and meandered in widening arcs - clearly craning its head around looking for potential prey - before dwindling to a dot over the next valley.

Male Goshawk sets off foraging (FZ45, heavy crops, distant bird). 13.vi.2012. Photos show the long-winged appearance, with narrower 'hand' (2nd left) and distinct neck (right).

The shape in flight was different from raptors I was familiar with, but seemed to combine some aspects of both Sparrowhawk and Honey-buzzard.  But the wings looked longer than any Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus and narrower than Honey-buzzard although the fairly long tail was half-spread and sometimes twisted in flight in Honey-buzzard style.  I was able to get a few low quality images when the bird was already much too distant but these showed enough information for me to conclude that I'd just seen an adult Goshawk - probably the same individual I'd seen not long before heading toward the nest with prey.

That's when the penny finally dropped: I could probably give myself a decent chance of seeing a Goshawk again by observing from the same spot and looking specifically for the male leaving the nest area after a food drop.  Definitely a plan, although it could be confounded by several variables: I didn't know how often food might be delivered, the male might set off foraging on any compass bearing instead of heading down-valley, and he might not fly off above the canopy.

Next day, I did not see him flying toward the nest area but again he suddenly appeared in the mid-valley airspace in front of my watchpoint (left image below), rose fast on a headwind and was soon out of sight over the head of the main valley.  Apart from the relatively long wings, compared with Sparrowhawk, the narrow 'hand' relative to the broad secondaries really stood out in the few images I had time to take.

Adult male Goshawk, the same bird, next day. 14.vi.2012.  Photo on right shows the narrow hand, white undertail coverts, hint of the head pattern (and missing secondary). 

Just having a clue about where to look for a male Goshawk felt like a real step forward.  But a sighting was by no means guaranteed, and if he did show he was always more distant than ideal, too fast, and soon out of sight. And during many watches he did not show at all.  The other obvious constraint was that this approach is only viable when the male is compelled by the needs of his mate and their brood, or subsequent fledglings, to be out and about foraging for food, ie. potentially from late May through to early August.  No doubt the local micro-topography, the availability of an effective watchpoint, and the nest location itself (see pages 'Location' and 'Nesting site' on tabs above) all contributed to the relative effectiveness of this approach.