Northern Goshawk

 

Accipiters

Hawks are divided into two separate genus, Buteo and Accipiter. The difference in the two genus is in their anatomy. Buteos posses an opening in the front of their coracoid shoulder bone. This opening is called a procoracoid foramen. Accipiters lack this opening. However this difference is not something that you can use to distinguish between the genus' when you are out in the field watching birds.
So here are some tips to help you identify Accipiters when you are out bird watching. Accipiters generally prey on other birds so they have several adaptations that help them to catch their food. First off they have short wings and a long tail which helps them to be more maneuverable. They also have long legs, which are good for sticking into bushes to catch a hiding bird, and long toes, similar to those of falcons, so that they can wrap them around a bird in mid flight. Another thing that can sometimes help ID an Accipiter is the color of their eyes. Accipiters have brightly colored eyes. They start out bright yellow when it is a first year bird, turn orange in the second year and red by the third year. This is a good way to tell the age of some of the younger birds. Here in Minnesota we can see three different species of Accipiters. The smallest is the sharp-shinned hawk, first picture. Sharpies are forest hunters that often ambush their prey from a hidden perch. This sharpie was photographed migrating over Hawk Ridge. The second photo is of a Cooper's hawk. Coop's are mid sized Accipiters whose population seems to be on the rise in cities where they like to hunt at bird feeders. The largest of the Accipiters that we see in Minnesota is the northern goshawk. These birds migrate down from Canada, where they breed, and spend the winter in the southern part of the state. Out of the three Accipiter species that we see this is the only one with a diet that includes a substantial amount of mammal included with birds as prey. The northern goshawk is circumpolar so they are also found in northern Europe and Asia. This one was banded and photographed at Hawk Ridge.

Happy 3rd B-earthday

On Earth Day 2007 I began this blog as a way to share my photographs with other people who were interested in birding and nature. Now here we are on Earth Day 2010 and the blog is still up and running with the number of readers, friends and followers steadily increasing. Over the past three years I have learned a lot about wildlife, blogging and myself and I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every visitor to this blog.

I wish that I could invite you all over to my corner of the world and meet with you in person. Unfortunately that is not very realistic so I offer this photo as a tribute to you, all of my cyber friends. It is your comments and your continued visits that help me to fly free day after day.

Northern Goshawk Release

While as a rule I do not usually like to post pictures that I did not take on the blog there are exceptions to every rule. This is a picture of me releasing a northern goshawk, one of three birds that I adopted up at Hawk Ridge this fall. The northern goshawk is kind of a special bird up at Hawk Ridge because they see more migrating goshawks then any other hawk watch site in the world, they counted 5,819 in just one season back in 1982. Peak migration for northern goshawks at the ridge is October 10th through November 15th. So if you have ever dreamt of seeing a northern goshawk live and in person you should plan a trip up to Hawk Ridge in the fall. Your chances are good that you will see one and maybe even get to adopt one and release it back into the wild like I did.

Hawk Ridge

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the weather, with cool nights and comfortably warm days, I love the changing colors of the leaves, and I love watching the migrating birds. Usually during the fall is when I get to see and photograph a lot of raptors and this year has been even better then most. A lot of that has to do with all of the volunteer work that I have been doing lately. This weekend I spent Saturday up at Hawk Ridge in Duluth helping out. Some of the color is already gone, due to our early snow, but the view from up on the bluffs is still magnificent.

While I was up at Hawk Ridge I took the opportunity this time to adopt some birds. Adoption is one of the ways that the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory supports all of the education and outreach programs that they do, not only during migration but year round in Duluth and the surrounding area. As part of the adoption you get the extreme privilege of holding your adopted bird and returning it back to the wild. At the times that I had volunteered earlier in the fall I held back on adopting birds to let other people get the opportunity to experience this rare privilege but with fall coming to an end, the education programs at the ridge end at the end of October, I decided that it was my turn. So I ended up adopting two northern goshawks.

Part of the reason that I decided to go up on Saturday was because it was the last time this year that they would be holding an owl program in the evening. I have really wanted to go to one of the owl programs but because of logistical reasons, like I live three hours away, I had not had the chance. So this time I reserved a hotel room and I was able to make it to the owl program. This was fortunate because it turned out to be a great night for owls. There were several owls that had been sent over from the banding stations and were ready for adoption when I arrived. Most of the owls that were adopted were northern saw-whet owls. These diminutive owls are one of the owls that I was really hoping to see and be able to photograph, since I did not yet have any saw-whet pics. There were five of them that were adopted and when they were released many of them were not in a hurry to leave.

Another owl that I did not have pictures of before Saturday was the long-eared owl. There were two of them that were up for adoption and so I decided that I would adopt one of them.

The final owl that was adopted that night was a barred owl. I have seen barred owls up close before, we have one as an education bird at The Raptor Center, and I have photographed one in the wild in Florida but I still have not photographed one in the wild in Minnesota. I have seen them quite a few times but usually they are gone before I get a chance to get a pic. Maybe I can change that this winter. If you want more info on Hawk Ridge or adopted birds at Hawk Ridge then check out their website here. They do take pics of the release but it will be a while before I get a copy of those, they have a lot of pictures to go through. Once I receive those pics I will make sure that I share them here.

Happy Wordless Earthday: Northern Goshawk

Answer 4: Northern Goshawk

Eye Number 4 (D) on the quiz belonged to a northern goshawk.
The northern goshawk are found in most northern regions around the world, including Alaska, Canada, Siberia and northern Europe, as well as higher elevations, like the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Cascades and Mexican Highlands.
The northern goshawk is the largest member of the Accipiter genus found in North America, the other North American Accipiters would be the sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks.
On their breeding territory the northern goshawk can be extremely defensive, often defending its nest from predators as large as wolves, bears or even man.

During the winter many goshawks stay on their territory in the north but when the availability of prey becomes scarce then goshawks will begin to move south in search of food.
This goshawk was on his way south when he spotted what appeared to be a starling that was injured. What the goshawk found though was that the starling was bait at one of the banding stations that are set up around Hawk Ridge during the fall migration.
The bird was either trapped in a bow net, a circular net that is placed on the ground in front of the lure which springs shut when a raptor is inside, or mist nets, black nets that the birds do not see as they fly down towards the bait. Once in the mist net the bird is caught in a pocket, that is built into the nets, hopefully long enough for a bander to run out of the blind and secure the captured bird.
Birds that are captured are banded with a unique band from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The band is recorded, along with information on the bird such as type, size and approximate age, and then the bird is brought up to the ridge to be adopted.
As you can see from the photos, which were taken by Debbie the Educational Director at the Hawk Ridge Observatory, I adopted this bird, on October 10th, 2008, and got the privilege of releasing it unharmed back into the wild. This was not soon enough for the goshawk who, like most of the Accipiters who are banded, was very vocal about the time that he spent with us at Hawk Ridge.

Hawk Ridge: Goshawk

In September and October I made several trips up to Hawk Ridge up in Duluth, MN to watch a flood of raptors fly by over head. One of the high lights of these days up at Hawk Ridge is the adopt a raptor program. While the big focus of the events at Hawk Ridge focus on the raptor counts there are also 3 banding stations that trap and band raptors who are flying by.
Often these banded raptors are brought over to the ridge where for a fee , $20 to $200 depending on the type of bird, you get to release the bird. Before the bird is adopted the education staff will give a short presentation so that people can get a close up look and learn about the bird.

Because they are more rare then many of the other birds that are captured, such as sharpies, merlins and red-tails, the northern goshawk is a little bit more expensive to adopt. This bird was banded on my trip up to Hawk Ridge on October 18th.

The goshawk is the largest member of the genus accipiter. Since they are members of the hawk family accipiters have rounded wings but unlike the other types of hawks, buteos, their wings are shorter and their tails are longer.

These adaptation help accipiters to maneuver through woodland in search of song birds and other prey. Accipiters in North America include sharp-shinned hawks, coopers hawks and northern goshawks.

Even though it is $100 dollars to adopt a goshawks I was ready to fork out the money. But since I had adopted a goshawk back in September and had already adopted a sharpie and a merlin that day I decided to that I would wait to see if there was someone else who wanted the privilege of holding the bird and letting it fly free. A woman did step up, although I am not sure that she knew how much it was going to cost, and adopted the bird. This was a first year bird. You can tell because the eyes are yellow. In accipiters the eyes darken as they age so in the second year they will be orange and by the third they will be red which is the color that they will stay