Juvenile Goshawk appears

Juvenile Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, wings partly
flexed in medium glide, secondaries bulging dorsally,
crossing ridge crest, 12.ix.2016, N Apennines. 

In the last post I mentioned one possible opportunity for coming into contact with adult Goshawks before the next breeding season: "I have previously seen distant 'probable' Goshawks around the craggy rock peaks of the local mountain toward the end of the year...".

It's a beautiful place to be, in the right weather, and can be good for raptors, which tend to pass low after crossing the lower wooded slopes, or to hunt around the gnarled volcanic outcrops.  Of course, some judgement over timing and positioning, and a lot of luck, are needed, but it can be more productive than the lower valley.  A high proportion of the birds seen in late summer are juveniles.

Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus and Sparrowhawk
Accipiter nisus during one of their frequent
noisy interactions, 12.ix.2016

These first two weeks in September, just past, have been blessed with continuous fine warm weather and the spectacle of juvenile Kestrels and  Sparrowhawks chattering and shrieking at each other as they contest occupancy of the tops.

Occasionally all the Black Redstarts Phoenicurus ochruros vanish from the rocks they were perched on and you know a juvenile Peregrine is about to arrive like a thunderbolt, with a peremptory call, ripping the calm air as it stoops down the sheer northern face.  Or Hobbies will arrive in twos and threes, spend no more than a minute almost brushing the grass as they streak around the outcrops then disappear into high skies to the south. And more rarely a migrant Marsh or Montagu's Harrier will cross the mountain after leaving its summer home in the nearby lowlands.

Sparrowhawk briefly in view while hunting around the
northern face of the mountain, 12.ix.2016

But then on 12 September what I had thought was one of the three Sparrowhawks seen regularly over the mountain, perhaps lurking around the shaded sheer northern face or moving between woods on different sides, registered as distinctly larger than expected as it passed obliquely overhead before gliding out of sight over the clifftop.  I could not make it out in life but the couple of images taken showed the dark-streaked buff underbody of a juvenile Goshawk, the first I'd seen since mid-August!

It would be great to know if it was one of 'mine', born in the valley trending toward the north from the base of the northern face, or a bird in the process of dispersing from a nearby valley.  It remains to be seen, assuming I'm able to return to the site in the autumn, whether I'll run into an adult up there, and be able to identify it before it passes out of sight.

Hobby Falco subbuteo (left) and Peregrine Falco peregrinus (right), both juveniles,
during one of their brief appearances over the ridgetop, 12.ix.2016, N Apennines