This is my friend’s new baby (eyass) northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis). He is a captive bred, Russian/Finnish subspecies cross and is 100% ADORABLE. I pretty much screamed with glee every time he did anything.
My friend is a licensed falconer of the general class, so it is legal for her to own and raise this bird. He is destined to be a hunting hawk and under my friend’s care and training, I know he’s going to be one major badass by the beginning of the hunting season this fall. For now he’s wibbly, wobbly, and covered in cotton.
Northern goshawks are sort of the Ferraris of the falconry world. They are fast, extremely agile, and focused, but make a mistake and you will pay big time. They are not forgiving birds and they require very experienced falconers to handle and train them. I’m very excited to watch him grow and watch my friend train him. I want a goshawk eventually, but not until after a lot more experience with more forgiving raptors. I’ve been out hunting with several goshawks, and man, it’s a wonderful and intense experience. Their ability to move through the forest is like watching poetry in sharp, pointy motion.
Thinking about how Klingons have the “Bird-of-Prey” warship and Romulans have “Falcon class” ships as well as the “Warbird” model and it just got me thinking that Star Trek aliens might be as obsessed with their raptors as we are with ours. So I made this weird niche comparison to various raptor species and now I can’t see crested caracaras the same way
Feng-Wu and his hawk from Sword of the Stranger . Yellow camellias for longing, white chrysanthemums for nobility elegance grief and death, yellow tulips for one-sided love, and lavender for faithfulness and being gay
A perfect example of teamwork between these two; hawk and dog working in unison to hunt. Kai got scraped off the rabbit during the initial grab. It started to run off, but Malia came in from the side and cut off its path, turning it back towards Kai for the catch. I’m so glad I happened to be filming!
