Tiny and far away, but it is a Goshawk!

Distant and out of focus but it's the male Goshawk out foraging, 2.vii.2017.

At my usual watchpoint again (2nd July), up at the top of the high landslip scar where the elevation and lack of woodland cover allow relatively good views across a wide sector of the side valley where the Goshawk nest is located, and, turning the corner made by a buttress of shattered rock,  part of the southern slopes of the main valley.

Now that this year's breeding attempt by the local Goshawks has failed (see previous post), the woods feel impoverished, as if an entire dimension of the experience of being out in the Apennine hills has vanished.  It has been a shock to realise quite how much I'd come to count on their wild cries around the side valley, and the occasional sight of the male rushing away over the woods on another hunt.  I guessed they would still be around their territory, but pretty much impossible to see, with no calls and no nest to focus their activity.  Happily, in compensation the Honey-buzzards have begun to show a little more often, and around mid-morning I'd been fortunate to catch a short encounter between three of the local birds high over 'my' side valley.  Although they were inconveniently high, I managed to get images of each that were just about adequate to see which of the local birds they were.

Then I turned the corner of the rock exposure in order to scan the main valley airspace for more Honey activity, feeling unreasonably greedy to expect more sightings.  Not long after, I was electrified by a distant but unmistakeable 'kek-kek-kek' call from somewhere in the side valley, out of sight to my left and lower down.  Goshawk!!  I rushed back around the rock corner just in time to see a grey-brown streak burst out of the patch of woods down beyond the bottom of the landslip scar and 100 metres or so upstream of the nest site, rocket low down the valley between the treetops, and disappear behind a hill spur below.  Got to be the male Goshawk, that patch of woods is where he used to call from to initiate a food delivery.

Today's call was quite strident, with an edge of excitement to it, unlike the often quite gentle and discreet k-k-k call preceding a food delivery.  I recall the same tone of call being heard earlier in the season, apparently when he just takes off after the area has been quiet for some time.  Today I also remembered a couple of sightings in past years: while standing in the meadows below the woods I'd seen him come fast down the side valley, turn across and over the bottom of the woods to his right, then making a wide hairpin turn, power away uphill again, back toward the crest of the southern slopes and theoretically within sight of where I'd just been looking for Honey-buzzards.  Well, nothing to lose by rushing back around the rock to look down the main valley, just in case - and there he was, distant already, in active flight toward the ridge crest as if heading for the woods on the far side!!  No physical identification features, but his behaviour means I'm sure it was the male Goshawk.  So what? Well, just that it is not impossible to see him post-nesting!