Goshawk

One of the joys of our new old house is the wonderful views from most of the rooms.  We can see both the sunrise and sunset from the kitchen right now, although that will change when the sunrise is further north in the spring and summer.  We are on the edge of town, and halfway up the hill, so there are panoramas of the hills through the Norway spruces and hemlocks that border the property.  At the foot of the hill is the West Fork River, which we can see a great length of through the trees.  Canada geese fly over the house regularly.  I hear crows often, something I missed in Texas, and often there are crows in the spruces, eating the seeds from the cones.

But this morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw something magnificent:  a large hawk, eating its prey (probably one of our red squirrels)  in a spruce.   Some searching in our books and the web identified it as a juvenile Northern Goshawk.  The name means “goose hawk” – I’m not sure whether that is because of its size or its ability to tackle a goose.

My camera wasn’t quite up to the task, so here is a picture from the USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

and a link to a video of a juvenile Northern Goshawk from the Internet Bird Collection:

http://ibc.hbw.com/ibc/phtml/votacio.phtml?idVideo=1911&Accipiter_gentilis