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Accipiter fasciatus didimus
Brown Goshawks are "medium-sized raptors (birds of prey). They have a brown head, slate-grey to brown upperparts with a red-brown collar across the upper nape of the neck, and finely barred underparts of red-brown with white. The rounded wings are dark brown to grey above and buff to reddish brown below with darker wingtips, and the long rounded tail is grey with dark bars. The long legs are yellow, with reddish brown feathering about the thighs. The eye is bright yellow." (Birdlife Australia)
Come in for a drink of water at Mankajarra Wetlands. (Check out this little video of the Brown Goshawk having a drink: https://youtu.be/LmKPcmj45zg ) This is towards the end of the dry season and in the build up to the wet season. Although the water level was low at the time, (it got much lower see pic 4 taken three weeks after the Brown Goshawk), there was still water and food due to the large amount of rain from the previous wet season (see pic 3 taken April 2017 just after the wet season) . Mankajarra has stands of Paperbark Trees (Melaleuca sp.) and other plants along the edges of the water. When the water level is high, the trees are in the water (see pic 3) and the birds have many more places to hide in and hunt from.
This beautiful bird of prey had landed not far from where my mum and I were sitting but it seemed content with us there. Check out the little video and you can hear Paperbark Flycatchers (Myiagra nana) hassling it - they also had a young one in the trees where we were sitting. Earlier we had spotted an immature Brown Goshawk (see spotting: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/130... ) which had come down for a drink as well. "There are several subspecies, with the northern sub-species, didimus, being generally smaller and paler." (Birdlife Australia)
6 Comments
Updated video link in the habitat section because the old one wasn't working.
Your welcome, armadeus.4....
Thank you Hema Shah! I'm sorry about the video. Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/256282868 but I also added it in at the beginning of the habitat section. And I agree...beautiful indeed :)
Thank you maplemoth! They really are beautiful :)
beautiful! Could not see the video though!
Four, beautiful photos....a beautiful Goshawk....