The best-laid plans...

Almost missed it: distant Goshawk, 21.v.2016

I have no intention to enumerate every Goshawk sighting, but this short update is mainly to continue the more optimistic outlook I had yesterday, when it seemed that my fears over the impact of torrential rain and hailstorms on this year's nesting attempt were groundless.

Shopping and washing meant I did not get to the high landslip watchpoint until late morning.  The first quiet "kek-kek" from the nest site, unseen below me, was not until 13.15, but some more calling at 13.45, a little more urgent, mixed with a couple of "weeoo" wails, got my full attention.  I figured the calls indicated a food delivery and began to scan the airspace over the valley downhill from the nest site, the typical route of the male leaving, wishing I had a hawk's eyesight.  The tension was getting very difficult when the tiniest flicker of movement against the sky, in the opposite direction, just caught my eye.  Another Common Buzzard?  No, more agile, more attentuated appearance, and the big tail abruptly fanned out on a turn - just like a Honey-buzzard - confirmed it was the Goshawk! (image above)  It had left uphill, perhaps within the woods, or just hidden by treetops, but it was already distant.

Anyway, only a couple of poor images, but more useful information: (1) the nesting attempt seems still on course, (2) expect the unexpected!

Lucky sight: note long wings, narrow hand 21.v.2016

And there was an unexpected sighting at about 15.35, on the way back down.  The track is inside the woods, with only an occasional glimpse of the sky overhead, but lower down it turns at a right-angle and at the corner a former tractor route into an abandoned hay meadow provides a wide view of the mid and upper valley basin that I'd recently left, bounded by wooded ridges and the higher mountains beyond.  I make a point of always stepping into the corner of the meadow, partly for the open view after the closed woodland, and partly because there is very occasionally a raptor to be seen (once there was a probable Goshawk leaving a tree in the far corner of the meadow, it was off its perch and away into the darkness between tree trunks before I could blink).  Today I looked up to see a tiny high raptor passing across a cloud: it was a Goshawk, probably the same elusive male again (image above, left).  He abruptly closed his wings and fell in a near-vertical dive.  He was high over the mid sector of the valley, and I guessed he was heading for the nest, but at low level he pulled out of the dive, angling away across the canopy, and from a point on his forward trajectory a pigeon-size bird rushed up from the trees and hammered away at treetop height.  These events were all very distant, but I could see that the Goshawk made no attempt to pursue but abruptly changed course again and vanished behind a row of trees.