For as long as I could remember, the northern goshawk had been elusive, existing just at the edge of everything. This ‘grey ghost’ haunted my imagination. In the early 1970s – which was just as I was beginning to fall in love with nature, and with birds of prey in particular – the goshawk made a clandestine return to Britain’s most remote forests.
From the age of five I had a treasured possession, a Hamlyn paperback titled simply Birds of Prey, which highlighted these birds in all their wonderful variety. A pair of northern goshawks at their nest graced the front cover, glaring and red-eyed. It’s clear that even in the company of other great raptors, this species, Astur gentilis, was always special.
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Yet at the edge of things the goshawk would remain, the fabled ‘phantom’ apparently incapable of surviving outside those distant, undisturbed forests, on which, I was repeatedly told, it depended.
As I grew older, I searched those places whenever possible, particularly Kielder in Northumberland. Kielder is Europe’s largest plantation of trees and a reputed goshawk stronghold, where the fugitive had established a reasonable population. I passed through many times and always stopped for a recce. I liked the idea that this forest held goshawks, even if I never saw them myself.
Then, one day in 2008, my horizons broadened. After a lifetime of estrangement, I finally came face to face with a goshawk. I was on a tall stepladder, peering into the dingy recesses of a junk warehouse in York. The unmistakeable glare of a goshawk greeted me from a glass case, and the surprise nearly knocked me off my perch.
Two years later, I finally encountered the real thing, in a small public park in east Berlin. This time, the goshawk was alive, vividly alive, even glowing, it seemed. The haunting had become a spell. The northern goshawk occurs right across the northern hemisphere – well at least it did until 2023, when scientists decided that the North American version is a distinct species of its own, rather than a subspecies of gentilis (there are many, from the large, pale birds of Siberia to the smaller, darker individuals of the Mediterranean islands). Goshawks in the USA now go by the scientific name Astur atricapillus, and both the American and Eurasian goshawks were moved from the genus Accipiter to the genus Astur.
Goshawks in Britain
The goshawk was lost from Britain by the late 19th century, following years of persecution. With the arrival of the gamebird-rearing age, it had become the enemy. In earlier centuries, though, it was revered, prized for its hunting skill and ability to provide food for the larders of the nobility. Indeed, hunting with goshawks was a pastime of choice for medieval kings, including Henry VIII (I can picture him and his entourage heading out accompanied by these noble birds of prey).
The goshawk re-established itself in Britain from around 1970, with the release and escape of captive individuals. Its return was somewhat opportunistic, though I discovered that some official bodies (such as the Forestry Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council) were involved in reintroduction schemes too. Had the goshawk not come back this way, it would have been incumbent on the government to restore it, as it has done for white-tailed eagles, red kites and others.
Since then, the goshawk has not spread as quickly as might have been expected. In contrast, the sparrowhawk, the goshawk’s smaller relative – which had been lost from most of lowland Britain due to agrochemical contamination – recovered rapidly in the same period. Yet goshawks reproduce at a similar rate to sparrowhawks.
Berlin: a goshawk capital
The experience of our European neighbours offers a glimpse of what could have been possible here. In the Netherlands, for example, goshawks are widespread across both rural and urban landscapes. The recovery began in the early 1970s, following the ban on DDT and other organochlorine pesticides. Notably, the Netherlands has experienced no modern-era conflict between gamebird-rearing and large birds of prey.
The goshawk is also present in many other northern European cities besides Berlin, perfectly at home in the built environment and abundantly supplied with prey species, particularly pigeons, corvids of all kinds, squirrels and rats. Berlin alone has around 100 pairs of goshawks. It begs the question of what the possibilities might be for the goshawk in British urban contexts in the longer term. Is it possible that this bird could be a sight to behold among our tower blocks and city churches?
The lost raptor
Some authorities and eminent ornithologists once questioned whether the goshawk was actually native to the British Isles, despite clear historical evidence of individuals reaching our coasts from continental Europe. Now, there is no longer any doubt that goshawks were once widespread in Britain – though this has only been the case for 16 years.
In 2009, archaeologists carried out a study of bird bones that had been collected from historical sites across Britain and stored in museum vaults. Many of these belonged to goshawks. By comparing the findings with goshawk numbers in the remaining wildwoods of Europe, the scientists estimated that, after the last ice age, Britain’s own wildwood landscapes could have supported around 14,000 breeding pairs.
Owing to the curious neglect of the species here, I came to think of the goshawk as the lost raptor. After all, it had literally been lost for all those years of the 20th century, but also lost figuratively, from our cultural memory.
I went to Perth Museum to visit the last known pair of goshawks to survive in Britain, shot at their nest in Perthshire in 1879 and destined for display in a glass case. But they were nowhere to be seen. The museum had a specimen of every other raptor on show but not the goshawk. With help from the staff, I tracked down the birds in the museum’s vaults, complete with their faded toe tags.
I confess to having had a suppressed fear that the goshawk might be too wild for modern Britain – not rewarding enough, somehow; too difficult to see and watch. This view changed when I visited Berlin and came eyeball to eyeball with a young female goshawk in that public park. I watched from a distance as she devoured her hooded crow prey. Passers-by stopped to admire her and she simply glared back – before performing an extraordinary display flight around the perimeter of the park, asserting ownership. Her mate then screeched in and ate his supper on a nearby lamp-post.
I was in the company of Rainer Altenkamp, a researcher from the University of Berlin. He has studied the rise of Berlin’s inner-city goshawks, which have taken over the city since the first pairs were recorded in the 1970s. I returned from Berlin reassured that goshawks can be safe in our midst and in plain sight, no longer having to hide.
Rise of the raptor
The same could happen in Britain’s urban landscapes. Goshawks are on the edge of some of our cities now, too, including Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Perhaps they could follow in the footsteps of peregrine falcons, which have carved out a new niche in London, going from zero to about 30 pairs in the metropolis in just a few decades.
Spring this year felt like a new goshawk threshold had been reached. I saw increasing numbers of goshawks reported in many UK counties. And they really were goshawks – more people are learning the differences between this bird and the similarly sized buzzard, the often surprisingly similar peregrine falcon and the sparrowhawk.
As well as stirring the imagination, the goshawk contributes enormously to its habitat. Small woodland nesting birds have been seen to benefit from the presence of nesting goshawks, which create a ‘halo effect’, displacing other predators that might take the eggs of smaller birds. Firecrests, for example, have been observed gravitating to goshawk territories, even appearing to accompany their ‘protectors’ from one year to the next when the hawks choose a different nest site a kilometre away.
Some studies have also found evidence of similarly beneficial effects for nesting woodland grouse. What’s clear in principle is that top predators are an integral part of functioning ecosystems. The return of goshawks requires some reorganisation of living communities.
While in Britain we have come to associate goshawks with coniferous forests, they are as likely to nest in deciduous trees where there’s a choice. The female is much bigger than her partner and tends to remain at the nest while the male provisions her and the young. Goshawks can breed in their first year of life and usually lay three to five eggs. Studies of prey brought to nests in Thetford Forest and the Forest of Dean have shown that goshawks are significant predators of the grey squirrel (see box, above), but their range of prey is impressive – besides pigeons, crows, rabbits and rats, they will also catch other birds of prey, young hares, gulls, ducks and even herons.
Tracking studies in recent years by the British Trust for Ornithology and Raptor Study Group volunteers have shed intriguing new light on the movements of the famously furtive goshawk. Surveys carried out in two contrasting areas of lowland England (Norfolk and Suffolk, and Gloucestershire) suggest that, while most fledged goshawks stay fairly close to their natal homes, a significant number are nomadic and can range great distances, hunting in more open country. For example, one young female tagged in Thetford Forest, Norfolk, was shown to have travelled across East Anglia.
The goshawk population of the UK is now thought to number around 1,200 pairs. Goshawks could and should be turning up anywhere, outside of the breeding season. In years to come, I think we will become more alert to the possibility of these magical birds in the landscape, as they become part of our visual vocabulary.
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Top image: northern goshawk. Credit: Getty