ALLAN BOVEE - PHOTOGRAPHY
 

ADVENTURES IN NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
 

AUTUMN 2008

During my expedition up north last June, I had anticipated finding the nesting goshawks I found last year. Long considered to be the most ferocious birds at the nest, I found them to be only fairly violent towards me. In fact, I thought I could get some fair photographs just standing near the nest. If I kept my disturbance to a minimum I thought I could quickly get some photos and leave the scene with the birds scolding and chasing me for a few minutes. But it wasn't that way at all. The birds would call to me from a far distance and only make half-hearted swoops at me, leaving me without any photographs. The birds are supposed to use the same nest for years, and this nest looked quite old and well used so I left thinking they would be back next year and I would think over a new strategy during the winter.

While in Florida in the winter I came up with a fairly crazy scheme to try the next season. I built a model goshawk, slightly smaller than the adult bird so as not to be too intimidating, and painted it to match the breeding plumage of the adult. I included the drooping feathers that hang under the tail which seems to imply status in the wild birds as they preen and fluff up these feathers to make them more attractive to mates and formidable to rivals. My plan was to mount the model near the nest to see if the wild birds would come over to attempt to drive off the rival. Then, maybe I could get some photos. This also would allow me to set up in a more open area instead of the deep and dark woods where their nest was, not very good conditions for photography.

Upon returning up north in June however, all my plans changed when I found the goshawk nest was abandoned. It looked like it had collapsed, probably from the winter's snow accumulation and so I gave up on my photo idea. I had found a white-throated sparrow nest which I talked about in my Summer Journal entry and kept myself busy over at that location.

After the successful nest photography, I began to search for blue-headed vireo nests where I had found one last year. The vireos were around but I wasn't having much success locating a nest. I decided to do a transect of the woods to intensify my search. This is a procedure where you walk in a straight line using a compass for a distance say a half of mile and then turn and walk over about twenty or thirty feet and turn around and walk back again using the compass to come out thirty feet over from where you started. Then move over and repeat this going back and forth until a large section of the woods has been covered. The vireo only nests from five to twenty feet up so in walking and looking there are large stretches where either the trees are too tall or absent entirely and you can cover the area fairly fast. When shrub or small pine trees are found a closer scrutiny is needed.

The search was going along fine and I had made several passes when suddenly I heard the familiar scream of a goshawk. I soon spotted the female and incredibly the male nearby. The female was scolding me, but the male was giving the location call of his position. Goshawk females are much larger than the males for a reason. These are bird hawks that live by catching and consuming birds in size from songbird  to grouse. They can out fly and outmaneuver most birds and the only way a bird can escape is to plunge into shrubs so thick the goshawk cannot enter or to just remain stock still and hope the goshawk doesn't spot them. But a male goshawk near a nest may be tempted to eat the nestlings, and so the female is larger and keeps him away. Her maternal instinct is too strong to do anything but protect her young. And so, the male's job is to bring food, freshly killed birds, but not to the nest. He arrives at a nearby tree and begins to call, just like the male was doing when I observed him. The female then leaves the nest and flies right at him screeching and making a great racket and just when she is ten or twenty feet away, the male drops his prey and flies off. The female picks up the food and returns to the nest. I had read about this before, but was very surprised to witness it on that afternoon. Evidently, the female on seeing her mate, had lost interest in me, chased the male off, grabbed the meal for her young, and took off into the deeper woods. What was I to do after this breathtaking encounter just fifty yards from me? I resumed my search for the blue-headed vireo nests.

About an hour later, I had worked closer to highway M-93 as I could hear an occasional car, but what caught my interest was a very high lisping sound coming from the woods. I had heard this in the Upper Peninsula and remembered it as the calling of a brown creeper which at that time was calling its young which had fledged. I soon spotted the bird with an insect in its beak and I determined to follow it to its nest. It took a great deal of concentration as the calls where nearly inaudible and the bird would fly from one tree trunk to another. I remembered reading that the brown creeper builds its nest under a piece of peeling bark and kept watching the bird and looking for a dead, standing tree with hanging bark nearby. Several candidate trees were there and the bird kept disappearing on me only to show up later a few tree rows over. I was very involved in the search until I located a large nest above the tree I was leaning against and thought to myself that maybe that was a goshawk nest, when suddenly erupting out of nowhere the female goshawk came screeching and diving at me forcing me to hit the ground before it appeared she would slam into me.

I quickly left the area and went back to camp to figure out what to do next. I decided to return the next morning and verify that I had indeed found an active goshawk nest and to try to see young birds in it which should be the case at this point in the season. But on arriving I couldn't get near the nest as the female returned to marauding me and so I left again. Using my bird model would be ridiculous so I decided to just bring my camera and big lens and try for some shots and then leave her alone. On arriving in the nest area, the female continued to dive-bomb me. This bird was not at all like the one from last year. If you didn't duck or hit the ground she would turn and come at you again. Once, I tried to duck behind a tree but she wasn't fooled and flew around the other side of the tree and landed on my back. As I tried to escape, I soon realized not to turn my back to her, for then she would swoop in, hit me, and fly off screaming her call. So, I found the only way to leave was to face her and walk backwards and not for just a ways but all the way back to my van, about a mile away. This bird was the most ferocious animal I have ever met in the wild. I knew I shouldn't be there, but the bird last year wasn't nearly as tough.

I went to town and bought a hard hat and some goggles to protect my eyes. During the week the weather was bad and rained many of the days. But when it cleared, I would go back and try again. Either she wasn't around and I could view her nest with the young birds watching me, or she was there not letting me get very close at all. I finally got some photos of her but only by standing up to her and not turning around. If she swooped down at me I began waving my hands over my head and she wouldn't come close. And I always walked backward keeping her in sight. Even when I got back to my van I was careful not to look away as I loaded up.

The photo at the beginning of this article gives me the creeps. This is the trail I would take walking towards the goshawk nest and at any second a bird would come screeching down this trail flying full speed right at my head. The nest was just beyond the clearing at the end of this trail. The other photo is one I got of the bird in a quieter moment. You can see how they prefer their under tail feathers to be displayed and prominent.

The northern goshawk may be the most magnificent bird in the world. I didn't want to harass the nesting bird, but only wanted to get some photos. The total time I spent near the nest was not even one hour in a whole week. But to be that close to a beautiful predator in the wild was a great experience I will never forget.

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Date this page was edited: September 18, 2008.

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