The 'Honey-buzzard' that was a Goshawk

The breeding male Goshawk, 30.v.2016

Friday 10 June, forecast "sereno" (sunshine and cloudless sky) from dawn to dusk.  Hah!  Yea, right.  Well, only a few spots of rain, but chill breezes, and clouds clustering dark and heavy right over the valley. Then, it abruptly cleared to blue sky and hot sun around mid-afternoon, by which time I was on my way back down.

It was a strange session.  After about an hour I saw a raptor moving across the head of the side valley where the male Goshawk had quite often been seen, but this bird was fast, flappy and erratic, wings looking a touch shorter or broader.  A Sparrowhawk.

Then, after four and a half hours at the rocky watchpoint, trying to force breaks in the cloud cover by willpower alone, I picked up the thin shallow arc of a medium sized raptor lifting above the ridgeline opposite.  Honey-buzzard I thought at first, and still thought after an anxious few moments when I lost it and refound it higher and closer and gliding toward my position.  That 'giant falcon' shape of a gliding Honey-buzzard approaching is so typical, the wing distinctly flexed with that forward prominence at the wrist, straight trailing edge, tail closed and looking quite long with rounded end, head inconspicuous.  Closer, its forward speed was suddenly startling, then the bird angled away giving a side view, dark against the grey sky, and then my last views were a series of broken images as it passed behind the trees to my left and disappeared over the convex slope above. Something about these last glimpses did not look right.  Was it a Honey-buzzard?  I only got a couple of poor images, but they show the bird was a Goshawk!

Honey-buzzard (left), Goshawk (right), to show similarity in silhouette of birds approaching
 in glide, rather like a giant falcon.  Goshawk 10.vi.2016.

Somewhat chastened, I resolved yet again to look thoroughly before coming to conclusions about identification.  The images show subtle differences in the silhouette that I might have seen in better light, or had I not in my mind already pencilled-in the bird as a Honey-buzzard, or had I kept binoculars on the bird instead of trying for some record images.  And the Goshawk image clearly shows the projecting undertail coverts on one side, which I did not see in life.  The bird appeared distinctly large and bulky to me, close enough to the scale of a Honey-buzzard anyway, and I now wondered if it had to be a female Goshawk; the adult male seen quite regularly now is definitely more slender overall.  It was certainly not the female that appeared over the nest woods with the male on the 7th (see previous post) because that bird was showing evidence of moult in the wing.  Why have I not seen it/her before?  Perhaps I have, but only at extreme range.

The unfamiliar Goshawk, 10.vi.2016, N Apennines

The bird I now knew to be a Goshawk flew almost directly over the nest site on its way toward my position.  I had not heard a single sound from the site in nearly five hours watch and now began to get uneasy.  The day before I had been high on the other slope of the cloud-filled valley, trying to peer through the ribbons of cloud blowing up the slope from below.  On my way down about 12.45, the cloud beginning to clear, I paused to look across over the tract of woods where I know the nest is situated.  Almost immediately I heard a sudden outbreak of loud and prolonged kek-kek-kek calls and repeated wailing, some wailing calls sounding thinner, as if from at least one large chick.  There was silence for a couple of minutes, then the whole strident episode started again.  No bird was seen leaving the scene.  But I was quite shocked by the energy put into all the calls and really wondered if something serious had occurred (wild thoughts of another Gos taking a chick, or a Marten perhaps, or the male bird even...), or could it have been just the female seeing off the male partner again?  Seeing today's large and unfamilar Goshawk made me wonder again about the cause of yesterday's violent alarms.

But then, at 14.10, I heard a quiet and short k-k-k call from the site, one quiet wail, and there was a bird arrowing away down the centre of the valley.  The male Goshawk!  So, the nesting attempt seems to be still on course.  I just hope it can withstand all this rain.