I wrote this brief brief post on January 2, 2019, after encountering an American (then Northern) Goshawk during the urban Denver Christmas Bird Count. Given Saturday’s encounter with the great bird, amid similar kinds of conditions, it seems appropriate to repost it here.
The day before, snow enough to drive the hawk down from the mountains, past the foothills, into the front range.
That day, the terror of prey. Two dozen House Finches. Waxwings, after.
Also, luck. The dumbest of kinds. To have left home for the trails later than usual, owing to cold and wind. To have walked this way, toward where the bird would be a half hour later, rather than that way, though that way is no worse than this.
To be in the path as the prey flee. To turn toward where the hawk will be. To see it with the field marks visible, even as it cuts behind houses and ornamental trees.
I was fortunate, on the first of the year, to encounter these signs and their bird, an adult Northern Goshawk, along the High Line Canal Trail in Cherry Hills Village. This was my third encounter with a Goshawk. All have been along the canal, in conditions roughly similar to those described above. But this sighting was particularly meaningful, coming both on January 1 (first bird flicker; best bird…) and in the urban Denver CBC circle on the morning of the count.
Goshawks move around a bit in winter time. According to Birds of the World, they’re also irruptive about once a decade, with northern birds moving farther south to hunt when food is scarce.
The Goshawk that I saw seems to have ended up just three miles south, and another birder reported him visiting their yard. There have been a smattering of other reports of American Goshawks in the Front Range. It’s possible we are at the start of one such irruption in Colorado, though only time will tell.
2019 checklist here.
Featured Photo by Andrey Gulivanov on Unsplash
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