Northern Goshawks prefer organic chicken, too

Young adult male Northern Goshawk.

Last week I was able to get some decent photos of a Northern Goshawk at our farm. Unfortunately it was standing on the dead body of one of our young New Hampshire cockerels, but what can you do.

We're guessing that this is a young adult male Goshawk. Looking closely at my photos, it appears that this bird is almost completely into its adult plumage. And like most raptors, the male Goshawk is smaller than the female, and this one is definitely smaller than the chicken  it killed. In fact, the hawk couldn't get off the ground with the chicken. (The adult Goshawk tops out at 2.1 pounds, and this 14-week-old cockerel was easily twice that weight.) The photo below shows the hawk trying hard to move the chicken, but it only managed to jerk it a few inches across the grass. I wonder if the hawk learned a lesson from this? Hmm.

The Goshawk tries unsuccessfully to fly off with a chicken twice its size.

I've been trying to get photos of a Goshawk for a while now. Our friend Shelly Ament, a wildlife biologist with Washington's Fish and Wildlife Department, told us that Goshawks are not often seen by humans in the wild. (Ha, I thought. Try letting some chickens free-range in YOUR backyard.) I retrieved a primary wing feather, which I saw fall from the hawk while it was flapping its wings, and we saved it to give to Shelly. She had asked us to be on the lookout for Goshawk feathers. Her department is interested in comparing the genetics of Goshawks in our area to those of hawks in British Columbia, so she was quite pleased to have the feather.

The white supercilium (eyebrow) clearly identifies the Northern Goshawk.

Since we choose to free-range our chickens, turkeys and ducks, we do lose birds to predators from time to time. Still, we feel fortunate to live in a place where we sometimes see beautiful animals like the Northern Goshawk. What a gorgeous bird.

Bobcats with chicken breath, and other bedtime stories

The past couple of days have been quite exciting, in a man-versus-jungle sort of way. After seeing a large bobcat out near the edge of the canyon in the morning, we later saw what appeared to be a mother bobcat and at least one of its babies. Evidently it was the day to train young Bobby to hunt. David actually saw the youngster grab a chicken and try to run off with it. It had to hold its head up high to keep the chicken from dragging on the ground, hampering its escape attempt by affecting its ability to see where it was going. David made some noise close to the kitty, who immediately dropped the chicken (which was apparently unhurt other than losing a large wad of feathers) and ran into the berry bushes.

Meanwhile, I was stationed, with my camera, about 40 yards away on the south side of the black walnut tree, expecting the mother bobcat (with or without Bobby) to head that way. Sure enough, Mama came out of the brush about 25 feet from me, just the other side of the tree. She saw me right away and shot off across the shooting range into the berry bushes on the north side of the hill. Alas, I wasn't able to get a photo, she was too quick; I live in hope, however.

Looking around the area where young Bobby had grabbed the pullet, we discovered several piles of feathers, all looking like they came from the New Hampshire pullets. We will have to do a head count tonight when they're all tucked in, to see how many we might have lost; hopefully very few. We do realize, though, that we need to do some serious strategizing as far as predator control is concerned.

Bobcats like to hunt at the edge of the woods, sneaking up on their quarry and staying under cover until the last minute, then jumping out to grab the unsuspecting prey. We've actually witnessed this, even in our front yard; the birds start squawking, we take a look, just in time to see a cat jump over the fence, snatch a chicken in its mouth, then leap back over the fence. It's amazingly quick, and honestly, we have to admire the beauty and grace of these animals, even if we don't always appreciate their lunch choices.

Keeping in mind their hunting habits, we are continuing our efforts to clear away the brush, low-hanging branches, and all the nettles, bracken ferns and other vegetation that grew like crazy during the mild, wet weather of last spring. We figure we'll at least make it harder for the cats to sneak up on the free-ranging birds. Short of completely confining the chickens and turkeys in fenced areas, which we really don't want to do, this seems to be our best strategy. It's helped a lot just to do some reading on the subject, to understand the hunting habits of bobcats and other predators. We also plan to hatch more birds in the spring, to account for occasionally sharing some with the native wildlife.

This afternoon, when it's warmed up a bit, I will be back out there with the sickle, pruners and Swedish brush hook. What the heck, I can always use the exercise.

Fall colors and winter coats

It's 71 here as I type (uncharacteristically) at 4:00 PM. The birds are showing signs of nearing the end of the moulting season, and showing off their perfect new feathers as they sunbathe. Meanwhile, the trees around the farm are showing signs of the change of season: The leaves of the vine maples are rapidly turning shades of gold, and the black cottonwood leaves flash their silver undersides in the slightest breeze. The trees are already starting to shed their fashionable summer looks. October rains are just around the corner; I'm thankful that this year's early moult has supplied the birds with their new down coats before the winter chill takes hold.