One of our science instructional technicians, Susan Landesman, told me a
fascinating story yesterday and also sent it to me via e-mail, which I'll
pass on to you. The bird in question was almost certainly a Northern
Goshawk, from her description:

> It had a very light grey body with dark grey horizontal bands across the
> breast and tail feathers. I got a pretty good look at its coloring since
> it was coming right at me and got within 50 feet. There wasn't any brown
> on it at all.

Here's the incident she described:

> I saw the most incredible sight yesterday morning. I had just walked
> outside and there was this crash crash crash and a fawn went tearing
> across our meadow. I thought at first that I had scared it, but then it
> doubled back towards me and I saw that there was a bird (an absolutely
> incredibly beautiful bird!) right over it, about 8 - 10 inches above the
> fawn's shoulder shadowing its every move. The poor baby was scared to death
> (eyes rolling, tail flagged) but couldn't get away. They went crashing off
> into the forest and about 2 minutes later emerged again, still with the
> bird right over the fawn. They charged back across the meadow and
> disappeared into the other side of the forest. I then, of course, had to
> go back inside and pull out all my bird books to try to identify the bird.

This sounds very much like a Goshawk attempting to kill a fawn. I've
checked all my references at home, including Bent's _Life Histories_,
Brown and Amadon, and other books on raptors, and I find no mention of
Goshawks attacking mammals larger than rabbits, except for several
stories of them attacking humans who may be threatening their
territories. Lots of comments about Goshawks' tenacity and ferocity in
hunting, but I've never heard of one going after anything as large as a
fawn for food. What does anyone else know about this behavior?

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 360-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 360-866-6794

Reunite Gondwanaland!