Hello folks, this is my first posting in the group. I was directed here by a helpful lady at bayside@birdlife.com.au when I asked if casual forums were available to help amateurs identify birds by pictures or sound. My wife and I are hobby bird (and native wildlife) watchers in suburban Cheltenham VIC and we occasionally need such help when we spot unusual visitors. We have some familiar and popular bird books, but we can be confused by the appearance of rarities or juveniles with different markings.
Here is the specific reason I arrived at the group: I was standing in our kitchen reading the newspaper when I heard an explosion of flapping wings evacuate our back yard en masse. Many dozens of doves as well as the resident mynahs, wattle birds and even the local magpie family just blasted off into the air and left the tree branches swaying. It was so stunned I ran out to see if it was an earthquake or nearby disaster, but the yard was mysteriously deserted and silent. A minute later I saw a huge dark bird tail sweep across the yard and land in the tree by our kitchen window. I quickly grabbed the camera and just pointed and clicked at arms length by guessing the right direction. I was lucky and I captured the cause the mass bird evacuation, which you can see here:
http://www.orthogonal.com.au/img/wg2/f5811a5563f54394_100.jpg
The lady at birdlife explained it was a juvenile goshawk, identified by the brown plumage and horizontal chest stripes.
About 15 years ago I saw a smaller version of this bird sitting on the power lines with a mouse in its beak. It might have been a sparrowhawk. As I watched, it ate the whole mouse head first, the tail disappearing tip-last down its throat.So I think this is only the second
I have a hobby page of back yard bird spotting here: http://www.orthogonal.com.au/animals/birds.htm. We’ve had some interesting birds drop in our yard over the years, including corellas, tawny frogmouth, cockatoos and a kookaburra (no photo sadly).
Cheers, Greg Keogh ===============================
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Comments
2 responses to “Hello and our unusual backyard visitor”
Yes, excellent photo for such a quick shot, and congratulations for having one in your garden. We had one until our neighbour’s rabbits had all been eaten. This is one of our favourite species to argue about here, and we normally have a much blurrier photo to look at. I would have called the chest blotchy, rather than striped.
I’m interested to know if we can tell for sure if this isn’t a Collared Sparrowhawk (CSH). The male Brown Goshawk (BG) and female CSH sizes overlap, so the size doesn’t help unless it’s huge or tiny and you can estimate the length.
The fierce brow indicates BG to me, but sometimes I see a photo that looks fierce enough for BG and I’m told it’s a CSH, or vice versa. Same for the stout legs.
We can’t see the tip of its tail to see if it’s rounded or square. Relative middle toes length matters, but some say you need to actually measure it to be sure.
Welcome to birding-aus, Greg.
Peter Shute
Congratulations on getting a photo! Of course if the hawk was sitting upright, the stripes or streaks would be vertical.
Anthea Fleming
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