• The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
    Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
    Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.

  • Today marks the 24th anniversary of 9/11. I pray that this nation does not forget the loss of lives from this horrible event. Yesterday conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered, and I worry about what is to come. Please love one another and your family in these trying times - Spark

Young Goshawk attacks decoys

G

Gossman Knives

Edged Toolmaker
Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
9,411
I had a great day afield relocating my treestand for bow and early muzzleloader hunting. Then mid afternoon my buddy and I set up to dove hunt. We set up 6 dove decoys in some low bare branches. We set there for a couple of hours with no luck. Out of nowhere here comes a young Goshawk making a beeline straight at the decoys. He hits one, takes it to the ground. He comes up nails a second one, then hits a third one. Puzzled he flys up and lands next to a fourth decoy. He flys up circling the decoy trying to make it move and lands next to it on the branch. He does it a second time. He sits there for a few minutes then flys away. Of course, no camera to capture that experience. :rolleyes:
The only other time I had a similar event was when a redtail hawk attacked one of my crow decoys.
Like I told my buddy, you never know what show nature will put on when we're out here.
Scott
 
Last edited:
baldtaco-II said:
Interesting. I've put out owl decoys to attract crows. Often gets a mob going.
Click to expand...

I have been lucky enough to be involved with golden eagle banding, and the researchers use owl decoys as one form of attractant. During one session we had an eagle come in and slam the decoy. It was loud enough to reinforce the idea that those birds mean business.

We sometimes capture gosshawks as a sort of 'bycatch' and those little bastards are mean. You really need to keep track of where your fingers end and their talons and beaks begin. :eek:
 
I know what you mean about the sound. We have something that likes to eat in our yard and every so often, from inside, there is a noise like someone getting seriously slapped by a strong hand immediately followed by a feather (usually jaybird) shower. I've never seen whatever it is but it leaves the chickens alone. Plenty of hawks around but they seem too big to be so fast and I KNOW they eat chickens.
 
dectia said:
I have been lucky enough to be involved with golden eagle banding, and the researchers use owl decoys as one form of attractant. During one session we had an eagle come in and slam the decoy. It was loud enough to reinforce the idea that those birds mean business.

We sometimes capture gosshawks as a sort of 'bycatch' and those little bastards are mean. You really need to keep track of where your fingers end and their talons and beaks begin. :eek:
Click to expand...

Lucky indeed.

A friend of mine used to fly a goshawk when I was young. Great creature. I wouldn't have the patience because of the bird-brain thing but they are fantastic.

I've a length of video somewhere of eagles being used to take wolves. If you want to see it I'll stick it on a host.

That said, I was out at flyfalcons a while back and came point blank with an eagle owl. That aint small potatoes either. What a brute.
 
Last edited:
Though you had taken up decoy carving with the GossHawk when I first read the tiltle of the thread.
 
cddogfan1 said:
Though you had taken up decoy carving with the GossHawk when I first read the tiltle of the thread.
Click to expand...

It's funny considering me naming my hatchet after the hawk but we do have alot of Goshawks and Redtail hawks in my area. I've seen Bald Eagles several times also. Talk about a HUGE bird! I remember hunting groundhogs in West Virginia in the early 80's and watching a large hawk or eagle ripping apart a small rodent in the field.
Scott
 
Last edited:
Great thread.. Last winter I saw an immature Red tail hawk make a pass at a small remote controll car speeding through an abandon parking lot... the look on the operators face was priceless.
 
Eagles and hawks are truely great predators. Thanks for sharing the vids guys. The Golden eagle taking down the goat is amazing.
Scott
 
Scott,
You have a lot of them? Are you sure that it's a goshawk? Isn't that a very rare bird in your state? Not trying to be a jerk, but I have been into raptors for more than 20 years and have spent a whole lot of time in 40 states and I have only seen a goshawk once and that was way north of you. If you have a lot of them, I'm heading over because it has been 12 years since I saw one, and I am a big fan of them.
 
sawgrass7 said:
Scott,
You have a lot of them? Are you sure that it's a goshawk? Isn't that a very rare bird in your state? Not trying to be a jerk, but I have been into raptors for more than 20 years and have spent a whole lot of time in 40 states and I have only seen a goshawk once and that was way north of you. If you have a lot of them, I'm heading over because it has been 12 years since I saw one, and I am a big fan of them.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong as I'm no authority on birds of prey but when I did a search on Goshawks, it showed they were located across the top half of the US including Maryland. This may have been another type of hawk but it sure looked like one from the pictures I've seen.
Scott
 
I love accipiters because they are so brave, aggressive, beautiful, extremely agile and stealth
as shown in the opening post.
Also, some experienced birds show amazing intelligence to achieve surprise attack.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top