H is for hawk – sighted far off over woods

IF you’ve ever read the evocative award-winning bestselling book H is for Hawk you will have some appreciation of the wild beauty of the bird of prey author and falconer Helen Macdonald trained as she grieved the loss of her father: the goshawk.

And if you haven’t read it, the rare and elusive goshawk is certainly a bird worth knowing. It looks much like a sparrowhawk, only one close to the size of a buzzard, and is a fearsome-looking predator capable of killing squirrels and woodpigeons.

Only a few hundreds pairs reside in Britain, scattered about the country, including Wales in particular – though a few live in wooded parts of the Westcountry.

Along with so many other avian and mammal predators, they have been heavily persecuted down the decades – and were actually driven to extinction in the UK by the late 1800s. However, they made a comeback, perhaps due to accidental or deliberate releases, and with legal protection goshawks have slowly regained some lost ground.

Generally they keep a low profile, but at this time of year they can be seen flying over their nesting territories. One is unlikely to get a close-up view, showing a distinctive light stripe over their yellow eyes, but in flight they do have the shape of a sparrowhawk, if a barrel-chested heavyweight version. So it is worth glancing skywards in forested areas in March and April just in case.

A couple of days ago I was visiting an area near the eastern edge of Dartmoor and chatting to a birdwatcher who had an impressive camera set-up mounted on a tripod and was looking for another very different-sized scarce and shy species, the lesser-spotted woodpecker.

Although we heard one calling nearby it kept its distance, frustrating his morning mission to get a decent photo. “They’re not playing ball today,” he frowned.

Gazing beyond the trees in front of us, I saw what looked like a buzzard circling high in the sky a good distance off. There is no shortage of buzzards in Devon, but I raised my binoculars, just in case, and was amazed to find it was a goshawk – a bird I have only seen a couple of times before.

I even managed to get a hazy photo, while my neighbouring companion struggled to latch onto it with his high-powered lens before it sailed off beneath the clouds.

Even a distant view of a goshawk is memorable. These powerful raptors have a fearless confidence about them in flight. To carry one on a falconer’s glove must be an awesome experience. Little wonder they acted as such an inspiration for such a stirring book.