Well..... What can I say!
First thing I saw when I arrived at the viewpoint this morning was a food pass by our peregrines. As if that wasn't enough our fledgling goshawks have been trying their hand (or wing) at hunting. We spent most of the afternoon showing people goshawks perched, flying, and chasing each other, pretty much everything except doing back flips. Well, as one point they almost did!
One juvenile was obviously hungry and had a really go at catching a woodpigeon. There were a couple of pigeons enjoying themselves in the rain at the top of a conifer until a female goshawk decided they were on the menu. The youngster has obviously been watching our peregrines hunting as she did a superb stoop straight towards the unsuspecting woodpigeons. Luckily for the pigeons she missed them but it was a really good effort, 10 out of 10!
Also we discovered that there are actually three young goshawks which is a really good number for the a pair to fledge. At one point they were all in the air together along with an adult perched in a nearby tree keeping an eye on their antics.
Hopefully they will keep showing like this for the next few weeks, so come and have a look ASAP!
In my last post I said ' Hopefully the young will start to show as they attempt to explore the beautiful Wye Valley'. Well..... They did
I am on about young Goshawks which have been getting louder by the day. But up until today they remained hidden in the dense conifer opposite the viewpoint. We really weren't expecting to see much today as the weather was quite simply awful, but in between showers at least two Juvenile Goshawks were seen practicing their flying skill in the wind.
Our poor peregrines were ignored slightly whilst all this was going on but they were on show for anyone mad enough to visit us in the beautiful summer weather.
Hopefully the Goshawks will continue to show over the weekend before they start to explore further afield, so my advice would be to come and have a look sooner rather than later!
After the failure of our peregrine pair we were eagerly awaiting signs of another spectacular raptors chicks fledging. Goshawks are regularly seen at the rock and behavior seemed to suggest breeding somewhere in the area. A few months ago we saw a rather large female goshawk acting very territorial, chasing anything away from here patch of trees. We thought that she might have had chicks and our suspicions were confirmed a few days ago when we heard the sound of fledgling goshawks calling to their parents for food.
It's quite remarkable that we haven’t seen a goshawk at the site for weeks but they have obviously successfully reared young under our noses! Hopefully the young will start to show as they attempt to explore the beautiful Wye Valley.
We have also been seeing plenty of youngsters visiting our feeders. Great tits, robins, dunnocks and even marsh tit fledglings have been seen in the vicinity over the past few weeks. A really pleasant surprise was seeing a spotted flycatcher feeding a fledged chick this morning. I had to visit the viewpoint early this morning and was really glad I did.