July 2016, progress report

Distant Goshawk heading for the ridge, 16.vii.2016

So, back in the Apennines since 9 July, and the first unpleasant lesson has been that it is now very much more difficult to see the male Goshawk.  Not really sure why this is.  Presumably the female is now hunting more for herself and the young, and now that this responsibility is shared, the male does not need to be rushing around in such conspicuous haste.  Perhaps the female spends even less time flying in open airspace above the woods than the male does. It may also be that the female tends to be less protective of the nest once the young are flying within the wood, so the male is perhaps under less pressure to keep his distance.

It must be safe to assume the young have fledged, because since arriving back I have heard their relatively 'thin' wailing calls from different points within a couple of hundred metres radius of the nest.  I have not yet seen one in free flight above the woods this year; last year they did not appear in open flight until early August.

But I did see one in the woods by accident a couple of days ago.  I was on the trail that goes up the valley and passes quite close to the nest tree (the nest can just be seen from the trail in winter when the trees are bare, if you know where to look).  The trail loops around above the site and crosses to the other side of the valley, but above the site the loop crosses the same seasonal torrent that then flows down past the nest tree.  In fact, it is almost bone-dry this July (baking hot in contrast to wet and chilly June).  A juvenile Goshawk must have heard my approach because it flew up, with a cry, from the bottom of the deep and narrow torrent bed just below the trail.  Peering down I saw that a couple of tiny pools remained, dammed up behind boulders; the bird had been out of sight but must surely have been next to the water, presumably drinking.  It was certainly a young juvenile, dark sooty brown dorsally and very raggedy in appearance, but easily able to take off from a constrained space and slip away between tree trunks to somewhere near the nest, where it wailed again a couple of times, provoking a sibling (or two) to join in.

I was sorry to have disturbed it, but confident it could return to the water if needed, and very happy to learn that at least one of the brood is now able enough to take off from the ground.  In late July last year, returning from a period at home, I found remains of a near-fledgling Goshawk (flight feathers still emerging) that must have fallen to the ground, or been blown from the nest, and been unable to take off again.

Over several days since arriving back (not quite so many hours total observation time as in May-June) I have only twice briefly seen an adult.  A few days ago I was in fields at the lower end of the valley, close to the village, trying to pick up any Honey-buzzard flight over the panoramic expanse of woods above, but instead saw a Goshawk fly fast over the treetops of the wood bordering the upper meadows, and cross the valley to the ridge on its western side.  It then followed the ridgeline up towards the mountain at the head of the side valley, pausing to repeatedly circle a couple of sections, as if looking closely for potential prey (composite image below).  This is the route most commonly taken by the adult male after leaving the nest area, and it was in one of those sections the bird was examining, where coppicing has left a micro-mosaic of wooded, bushy and open patches of ground, that I once saw a Goshawk perched early one autumn evening.

Adult Goshawk foraging. Composite image to show aspects of flight shape (not plumage detail!) and a little landscape for context. Note long-winged appearance, broad secondaries almost 'stepped' up from the narrow hand, and very conspicuous white 'flashes' (lateral undertail coverts) that seem to be prominent at all times in the breeding male (not sure about other periods).  N Apennines, 16.vii.2016

Then yesterday I was at one of my old watchpoints, that has a view of the valley downstream of the nest site, listening hard for the sporadic calling of juvenile Goshawks (slightly distracted by an occasional distant Honey-buzzard whistle-call, and the screeching of a Peacock kept by someone in the village below).  About a minute after a short spell of agitated wailing, apparently from two juveniles, unseen but not far below, an adult came fast down the centre of the valley, turned a couple of relatively wide and slow circles over a patch of cut hay-meadow, and vanished again into the woods.