Goshawks

Friday 18th March

Ashdown Bird Group

A lovely morning spent with 8 friends from the Ashdown Bird Group.  Garry, my youngest son visiting from Australia, was guest of honour for the day and boy did he do well - a first ever shared birding event.  

We were searching for Goshawks and we found them!

• We soon heard then saw the male goshawk in the valley below us.  It was perched on a deciduous tree for a long time.   It took flight before landing again in the same area.

courtesy of Alison Playle

• Of particular interest was the altercation between the goshawk and a couple of crows, the scenario captured brilliantly by Alison in the images below.

 

courtesy of Alison Playle

courtesy of Alison Playle

courtesy of Alison Playle

                                                                                                                    courtesy of Alison Playle

• Also seen was a lovely kestrel

courtesy of Alison Playle

• ... and a fabulous sparrowhawk

                                                                                                           courtesy of Alison Playle

• Charles was looking through some photographs of the buzzards that we saw when he noticed  some ID features that suggested one of them was a female goshawk, the partner of the male we had been watching all along.  This turned out to be the case, adding further to our sense of achievement.

courtesy of Charles Waters

• Other birds seen included marsh tit, chiffchaff, meadow pipit, coal tit and long-tailed tit.

Wow!   What a great day to share with Garry!

 Year total - 151