This blog introduces the life of a goshawk, a wild drama that unfolded in front of the caretaker in an urban park Tokyo Japan from July 2017 to December 2018.
A female looking for a suitable branch for nesting material
Like other birds of prey, goshawks have a well-separated division of labor between males and females.
Up to this point, the males have been working on the construction of the nest, but the females will do the finishing work.
In this blog, I will introduce how females started to build nests.
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The base of the nest by the male is finished.
The scalpel is in charge of finishing the nest.
The division of labor between goshawks, males, and females is quite separate.
The male carried exclusively the leafless branches to the nest.
Originally a nest made by crows, wire hangers carried by crows were almost hidden by the branches of trees carried by males.
Unlike males, females choose the leaves of cedar and carry them to the nest.
She may be aiming for the insect repellent effect of cedar leaves.
The sitting comfort is also soft and looks good.
It may be wisdom that has been devised over many years to maintain good hygiene and health of chicks and to succeed in breeding.
Female trying to break a branch, a little too thick
After a while, the male couldn't find a good branch at first.
Similarly for females, this is the first work in a while since the last breeding.
At first, it takes a lot of time to find a suitable branch, and it is difficult to find it.
If you want to break a big branch, of course, it's hard to break.
It seems that it will take some time to get used to finding a suitable branch.
I'm sure I'll regain my intuition as I make several mistakes.
You can see the work of the male so far, and the body seems to be blunted
A female who couldn't find a suitable branch and decided to return to the nest for the time being.
Although it is for breeding, it seems to be in good nutrition and heavy.
There are many pigeons and small birds that are fed in the city.
It would be easy for the fed pigeons and goshawks to hunt, which is completely out of sight of being attacked by birds of prey.
Goshawks who eat such fed pigeons and gain weight can be said to be indirectly fed in a sense.
Pigeons that are now easily hunted will regain their wild intuition after a while.
I'm sure the goshawk's easy hunting period won't last that long.
A female that flew out of the nest in search of nest material
Is there a male nesting work, female monitoring, or hurry?
The male seemed to be under pressure from the female's line of sight, and he sometimes continued to work for hours with all his might.
The female does not have such pressure and works slowly at her own pace.
The shape is an already completed nest.
The rest of the work would be to lay a carpet of cedar leaves and shape it to make it more comfortable to sit on.
The amount of work is not so much.
On this day, it began to snow soon after this.
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to be continued
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