Northern Goshawk and Ducks

The Northern Goshawk took a Mallard duck in our yard, over the weekend; the hawk is still around.  We've seen it sitting in the maple waiting for ducks to appear.

Dwayne Biggar, who writes a column in the Times & Transcript every Saturday, lists identifying characteristics of a mature Northern Goshawk:  brilliant red eyes, fairly distinctive plumage and a tail that extends below the folded wind tips.  He identified this one from our photos.  (Dwayne's email:  thebirdgarden@rogers.com )

Dwayne says that Mallards are expanding exponentially and will potentially cause problems for other ducks, like the Blacks.  He says that the Hawk picks out the weakest, possibly a sick bird, so he's helping the rest of the flock. 

Dwayne linked to my blog entry of March 3, 2012 for Birding New Brunswick, to share the photos.

The ducks do not seem to be upset by this not-too-common backyard visitor, or perhaps they have short memories.

Nelson Poirier of Nature Moncton commented upon the rarity of seeing a Goshawk up close.  Nelson also writes a Saturday column for the Times and Transcript.  He describes himself as a "veterinarian by trade and a naturalist by nature" and can be contacted at  nelson@nb.sympatico.ca.  Bob Childs, of Nature Moncton, posted our Northern Goshawk photos on their website.  http://naturemoncton.org/hotshots.htm

Thanks to each person who supported our hawk sighting and shared our photos.  As you can see, the ducks continue to come, undeterred by the Goshawk.  Perhaps he is passing through on his migration route, as we haven't seen him this afternoon.

All photos are mine. 

Words in different colours will take you to another site

with more information, if you click on them.

Northern Goshawk

Carnage...blood, feathers, body parts…that’s what we saw when we opened our curtains this morning. 

All winter, we’ve fed Mallards and American Black ducks.  Instead of seeing 3 to 4 dozen ducks waiting for cracked-corn breakfast, we saw 3 ducks huddled under the branches of cedar trees in the neighbour’s yard.  In the tamped down space where we feed the ducks, we saw blood and feathers and bits of duck.  My stomach rolled.

What had happened?  What had killed the duck?  Where was the rest of the duck?

Figuring that dead-duck bits would be off-putting for the usual crowd, Gary went outside and cleaned up the mess.   We didn’t put out any food for the morning feeding, not wanting to entice more ducks to their doom.   Despite this, we knew that we couldn’t stop feeding ducks in mid-winter; they were accustomed to us providing for them.

Soon after the duck-remains removal, we looked out and noticed a Northern Goshawk sitting in one of our maples, 40 feet away.   Patient, it sat there waiting and surveying the yard.  We grabbed the camera and began taking photos.

To our surprise, it floated down and began rooting around, digging in the snow, searching for the duck remains.  The Goshawk must have carried away the biggest part of the duck and had now returned for the head and neck, it had left behind. 

The Northern Goshawk was 15 feet away from our kitchen windows.  It watched us, watching it.  It stared back at us and kept on digging.

Eventually, the Northern Goshawk flew away with a murder of crows squawking and chasing it away from their nests and our yard. 

The ducks?   The Goshawk was still around.  Crows were flying overhead, their raucous cries filled the air.  The ducks circled but didn’t land.  The robins and chickadees were hiding.  The yard was still, deathly still.

Deadly, agile and able to fly with lightning-fast turns through the trees in our yard, the Northern Goshawk was hunting.

We felt badly about the duck kill, even though we knew that this was nature, was reality, was the food chain.

We were grateful and felt fortunate to have seen this powerful bird, up close, even though it killed one of "our" ducks.  The Northern Goshawk was a stunning sight, despite the carnage.  It was being what nature created it to be...a ferocious predator.

All photos are mine.  Words in red will take you to another site, if you click on them. 

There you will find additional information about Northern Goshawks.