Recently my husband Gary was sitting in the glider looking out the kitchen window. A large hawk was perched high in a tall spruce. Gary thought it was a red tailed hawk. He summoned me over to see it and promptly relinquished his seat for good.
That bird sat still for an hour or so, plenty of time for an excellent study. Eventually my hands and arms were getting uncomfortable holding up my giant binoculars. This was a northern goshawk, our largest accipiter. They have a long tail, short rounded wings and fly rapidly with short wing beats which are interrupted by glides. Size is 51-66cm/20-26” (larger than a crow) in length, with females being larger. In our area they would be classed as uncommon, present in winter. Habitat for the non-breeding season is inside or edge of mixed forest. Food includes grouse, rabbit and squirrel. During the winter they are silent. Breeding takes place mainly north of the Great Lakes. Non-breeding range has been expanding southwards.
My challenge was the colouring didn’t match most of my bird books. I did determine that this was an immature bird or less than one year old. The immature is brown rather than grey. The under-part is massive, buff-coloured with vertical lines. Both age groups have a light eye stripe.
Eventually it came time for Gary to go outside and clean the snow off the truck. At that time it began looking around, ruffled its tail feathers and literally shot out of the tree. I scrambled to get up and see what it looked like in flight. It flew rapidly out of sight to the tall trees in our neighbour’s yard.
Here are some afterthoughts … Watching this aggressive, even ferocious, bird sit so patiently for such a long time was an experience I won’t forget. Goshawks are used by falconers. Status: species of concern from loss of densely wooded habitat due to logging. Resources used: BirdWeb, Birds of Ontario, Audubon, Alberta and Golden bird books.