Goshawk

It is fortunate for the American Hen that the GOSHAWK resides mostly north of the United States, migrating southward only in winter when its toll from the poultry yard is necessarily limited because the birds are confined to their houses. It is the most destructive of the Hawks to game birds, the Ruffed Grouse suffering particularly from its depredations.

Altho swift in attack its flight is even and its death is often accomplished with a rifle in the hands of a fair shot. Like most Raptores, hunger deprives it of caution.

Goshawks lack the accuracy of aim and persistency in pursuit exhibited by the noble Hawks. Singularly enuf, the youngsters with their brown backs and stripes below, seem to have more tenacity of purpose than the old ones. I saw one of these immature birds dive into a hawthorn bush after a rabbit. The branches were so thick that he could not reach the quarry but he struck again and again, at each attack leaving a bunch of feathers hanging on the thorns. I walked toward the scene of action but apparently the bird did not see me at all. Every sense seemed concentrated on the desire to kill. I was within ten feet of him before he desisted, swinging off denuded of half his apparel. Bunny never made a move, either being paralyzed by fear or knowing that leaving that shelter with its thickly clustered spiked branches meant death. Fright had benumbed it so completely that altho I reached down and stroked its ears and back it did not move. Fear reacts among many forms of life in two directions — often as a protection, sometimes as a means of extinction. I have seen rabbits bolt like a brown streak for a hole and reach it. Others stop suddenly in the open and are captured easily by the pursuer. Nature is an impartial old dame, sometimes assisting the helpless, sometimes forgetting entirely and offering them up as sacrifice to any rapacious pursuer which needs a meal.

It is fortunate for the Ruffed Grouse that Goshawks are not numerous and that their winter visitations are infrequent. I have never seen more than five in a winter and probably have seen the same bird more than once; and some cold seasons go by without a glimpse of one. If the snow is deep and soft, they catch very few Grouse for the pursued bird will dive into the white blanket and once beneath its shelter is safe; a Hawk never attempts to go in after one.

One January day I was sitting on the bank of a small tributary of the Androscoggin River in Maine, with my back against a friendly birch, idly puffing the old pipe and enjoying comparatively warm sunshine. It had been a regular winter — steady cold and three feet of snow on the level — but that day the January thaw was on and the temperature must have touched forty degrees. A whir of wings broke my meditation; a Grouse shot past from behind, so close that the disturbed air fanned my cheek, and dove into the snow on the opposite bank. Mingling with the whir of its pinions came a thin whistling as a fine blue-gray form dashed in pursuit not ten feet behind. The interval was enuf and the foiled pirate swung upward on a long curve, the sun glinting for an instant on his fierce ruby eye. No moving picture ever has thrilled me like the breathless action of that near-drama. It happened years ago but even now as I record the scene a faint touch of the electric sensation reawakens.