"The story of a goshawk, a bird of prey that has advanced into the city"
This blog introduces the life of a goshawk, a wild drama that unfolded in front of the caretaker in an urban park from July 2017 to December 2018.
Is it different from the usual female?
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Young birds who have completely left.
This is the story after the young bird completely left the Otaka Forest.
A female showing the behavior of branching to a male
Similar to last year (2017), in October, females showed a branch-folding behavior, and males showed an intention to "breed here again next year!".
The caretaker sees it as a ritualized, intentional behavior that females perform on males.
This forest, which has been successfully bred for two years, will surely breed here next year.
From the day this behavior was seen, the female disappeared from the Otaka Forest again.
One day in mid-November, about two weeks after such an exchange.
I found a goshawk in the nearby forest.
The male is like a normal male with this territory.
As for the female, "What ?! It's different from the usual female!"
I can't be sure, but the female looks like someone from somewhere else.
Males, even stranger females, will not be expelled unless they are in the breeding season.
Or maybe it's because there's no one to take turns?
I wonder where and what the female of the other party is doing.
Accepting other females seems to outweigh the disadvantages for males for breeding.
Is it like insurance in case your female is in an accident, injured, or doesn't come back for some reason?
The sight of males and females like this was seen continuously for several days.
Perhaps, during this time, we are investigating the situation of northern goshawks around the breeding grounds.
Meanwhile, the male is territorial and may be a lookout for the breeding ground next year.
In such a case, new encounters between males and females are everywhere.
Is it because of the new female's attention, or because of her first wife?
The male goshawk seems to be planning a big present for his female companion.
Or maybe it was asked by a new female.
The present is a teal in the left (top) photo.
There is also volume, and it will surely be delicious with oil on it.
Aiming for prey that has never been hunted seems to make more sense as a gift for a newly arrived female.
It may be an appeal of his own strength, saying, "You can catch such a big prey!"
However, teals are waterfowl and rarely on the ground.
How can you succeed in hunting waterfowl?
At the beginning, I could see eastern spot-Billed turtles and pintails observing for days.
I remember this eldest son who left the nest in the summer, observing the creatures rather than their prey.
This is probably a behavior common to male goshawks.
The most important thing for a successful hunt is to know the other person well.
It seems that he is making observations to know the other person.
At first, I often observed big ducks
Goshawks are probably thinking about various things while observing the spot-Billed turtles.
How does the opponent fight back when hunting? The one who is killed is life-threatening, so it's a life-threatening counterattack.
And when you put your foot on it, how do you dodge the counterattack and kill it? Can I carry it after I catch it? How far? Etc.
In my head, I think I'm adding and subtracting the advantages and disadvantages of hunting.
Spot-Billed turtles are big and powerful.
So, at this time,
The counterattack was fierce, and when he was killed, it seems that he came to the conclusion that the spot-Billed turtle is too big to fly from underwater.
Even so, what is the mood of a spot-Billed turtle looking straight at a goshawk in such a close vicinity?
The spot-Billed turtle remains calm, but is reluctant and ready to fly.
They do not show their weaknesses to each other, the wild world, or their coexisting neighbors.
If you can't run away, you have to show your opponent that you're not upset.
So, the prey that the goshawk chose as a target is a teal, which is one size smaller, does not form a large flock, and always has several birds.
Even when he was on the treetop, he seemed to be observing the behavior of the teal all the time.
The final conclusion would be that he could hunt!
Then came the chance to challenge hunting.
A teal that dives when approached
The slow-moving teal, the goshawk, would have been expected to be easily caught.
However, when approaching, the teal quickly dives deep into the water.
Can you really catch the dive?
Goshawks try to hunt while hovering in the air many times, but teals quickly dive into the water each time they approach.
The teal stays in the water longer than the goshawk hovering in the air.
It doesn't seem to be straightforward.
Big goshawks don't last that long because they need a lot of energy to hover in the air.
Creatures that move slowly or do not have weapons, often have hidden skills to live like this.
Teal weapons or armor seem to stay in the water for a long time to protect themselves.
I tried diving in the water
This place is deep and the goshawk's feet do not reach the bottom of the river.
If you are not good at it, you will drown yourself.
It seems that he couldn't even touch the teal even if he stretched his legs into the water.
Or rather, the teal has already swam underwater and escaped, and is probably not underneath.
Thanks to the deep water, the teal, which was targeted by the goshawk, managed to escape the difficulty.
Goshawks tried to hunt this teal many times, but couldn't catch it that day.
The teal, who was about to be attacked many times, would be relieved to escape the difficulties.
Goshawk seems to have realized something by the failure of this challenge.
"If the water is shallow, the teal cannot escape."
"If you attack a teal in a shallow water, you will surely be caught!"
And the next morning.
The next morning, the hunt was already successful, the teal under his feet
The next morning, the goshawk was successful in hunting teals.
By the time I found it, I had already finished hunting.
Goshawks seem to be trying to kill the teal by holding it down in the water, making it impossible to breathe.
The water depth of this place was so shallow that the goshawk could stand, and the teal probably couldn't escape.
Thanks to that, the goshawk was able to hunt successfully.
Goshawks seem to have noticed that this place is shallow and that if you hunt here, the teal will not be able to escape into the water and you will be able to hunt successfully.
Somehow, the teal of the caught prey is carried to the shore
The teal was held down in the water for a while, and the feathers of the goshawk itself, which had been in the water for a while, got wet, and the lift should have been lost more than usual.
However, I managed to reach the shore by dragging the prey to the surface of the water.
Goshawk feathers are barely wet, even though they have been used in water for so long.
The feathers seemed to be well maintained and waterproof.
Rather than usual, he probably tried to hunt waterfowl after applying more fat to each feather than usual in preparation for hunting waterfowl and making sufficient preparations.
The hunter's king, the male feather of the goshawk, is probably because it is always shiny.
A big prey that finally stopped
I stayed still on the shore for a while to adjust my breathing.
This hunt would have exhausted a considerable amount of physical strength in order to suppress the teal that rampages in the water.
Is it possible to fly with such a big prey?
It should have been well simulated in the goshawk's head, saying, "I can fly!"
After a while, I made up my mind and took off from the shore.
You can't kick the ground as usual because you're grabbing your prey.
It must be one of the largest prey I have ever carried.
I flap my wings with all my strength, but it doesn't rise easily
It doesn't rise easily, but it seems to be a calculation that the lift increases as the speed increases and it is possible to reach the target tree branch.
If the feathers were wet, I wouldn't have been able to fly with a teal.
Careful feather care is also utilized in such places.
Feather care is very important for flying birds.
A tree branch that I finally reached with my prey
The tree branch that I finally arrived at.
This place is not very stable and does not seem to be very suitable for handling large prey.
Prior to that, this prey was a gift for females, here on the edge of the forest near the river, unobtrusive and unsuitable for appealing to females.
You may not be able to find it.
Ideally, when a female comes to the forest, you should be able to find it immediately without calling out, in the middle of the forest, or anywhere on the tree of the forest.
Goshawk males preferred by females
Conditions, various things seem to be deep.
With that in mind, I regained my breath and then carried my prey to such an ideal place in the middle of the forest.
The branches are thick here, and you can look down from the entire tree in the forest.
The prey was brought to almost the middle of the forest, a place that seems ideal for confessing to females and feeding them.
This can be found in the entire forest if it is from the tree. In addition, the lying tree is thick and the prey seems to be stable.
Usually, it's about time for females to come.
The male dares to slowly pluck the prey while waiting for the female to arrive.
The male became increasingly sleepy as she slowly pulled out and worked while waiting for the female to come.
Males are always hard, so they're not good at working out of her hands.
In order to appeal, "It's a fresh prey that I just caught!", It is necessary to have a female see the plucked wings.
Therefore, work slowly until the female comes to the forest.
Male who found a female
After a while, a female came to the forest.
It was the time I expected.
The drowsy, closing male's eyes were wide open.
Females are watching males handling their prey from the top of the forest.
She seems to be watching from the top of the tree, but she doesn't come down very close.
You may be concerned about the people below.
From this appearance, it seems that she is definitely different from that female who is accustomed to humans.
If she was the number one female, she wouldn't care about people and she would have come down soon.
Of course, the pattern is different in size from the familiar female, but the gesture seems to be very different.
It is approaching confirmation, though it is based on the caretaker's arbitrary observation.
After this, I left this place for the convenience of the manager, so I do not know what happened after this.
Which female breeds with this male the following year?
I think he's been a wife for two years.
It seems that the male who came somewhere is waiting for the female to return while protecting the territory in preparation for next year's breeding.
If this big present was received by this female, I'm sure she would take turns in the unlikely event of a partner.
Even if it's years away.
Just in case, the goshawk's male and female, who are insured by the other party,
It's just a delusion of the caretaker, but when I saw it, I was impressed that it was very, very strong.
This year (2018) was the last time I observed a big movement of goshawks.
A few weeks later, the caretaker left Japan.
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This time, by observing the goshawk for over a year, I was able to get a glimpse of the strength of life and the strong way of life that was sharpened without waste in all its actions through the viewfinder.
Among its strengths are the tireless affection for parents and children, and the division of labor between fathers and mothers and lean actions to make children self-reliant.
During this 2018, while in Japan, I was observing goshawks as well as little grebes.
The species and ecology are different, but their strength and love for their children are exactly the same.
The drama of the creatures that connect life continues without a break for any time.
The reason why we can still live in the middle of the city is probably due to our sharpened and lean behavior and our love for our parents and children, as well as our feelings for warm creatures.
It makes no difference whether it's an African savanna, a rainforest jungle, or an urban park.
It is a drama that has been unfolding on this beautiful earth for billions of years since the birth of life, while being continuously sharpened without interruption.
The reason why the earth is beautiful is because there is such a sharpened life.
I started writing this blog, "Urban Goshawks, Breeding Records," in order to let many people know that the drama of such creatures is unfolding in urban parks.
It's been a long 40 episodes, but I'm going to condense what the manager saw and observed in this blog.
The number of goshawks has decreased to the extent that they are designated as endangered species at one point, and the number has increased again only with the understanding of the people.
An irreplaceable life that I want you to live forever.
I would like to continue to look at such life through the viewfinder.
A beautiful life that continues to be sharpened every day, and the shining mother sun
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the end
Until the end Thank you for reading.
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