My first introduction to the goshawk was during the summer of 1991. It was the middle of my senior year at Colorado State University and I was at Colorado State's Pingree Park campus for a 6 week Natural Resources field class. Tucked in a valley at 9000 feet in the Mummy Range just north of Rocky Mountain National Park, the campus was surrounded by conifers and aspens. One side of the dining hall looked out on a meadow and colony of Richardson's ground squirrels (Spermophilus richardsoni). One of the professors, Dr. Dale Hein, is a professed lover of goshawks. On more than one occasion, while we were eating, or during a class being held in the meadow, he would suddenly leap up shouting, "Goshawk! Goshawk!" , pointing at a grey blur shooting over the ground squirrel colony and into the trees. We all thought Dr. Hein was a bit of a nut case.

My second introduction to the goshawk came in 1993 when I worked as a field assistant for a graduate student named Jim Younk on his project in Nevada. I learned a lot about goshawks that summer and came to admire and respect it. I thought it would be great to study them myself, but didn't see an opportunity in the near future.

As luck would have it I ended up back in Nevada studying goshawks in the same area. Now, after five summers spent trapping them, being chased and bloodied by them, and watching chicks grow from little white fluffs to grey bullets dodging aspen trees, I think it would be a race between me and old Dale Hein who would be first leaping and shouting "Goshawk! Goshawk!".

The following is an introduction to the northern goshawk (species name Accipiter gentilis) and a short summary of my thesis project, which dealt with the movements and habitat use of juvenile northern goshawks during the post-fledging dependency period in the Humboldt National Forest, northeastern Nevada. The post-fledging dependency period is the time between when the young leave the nest until they are no longer dependent on their parents for food.

NOTE:
I've written this feature for the widest-possible audience. After all, if scientists can't express their research to non-scientists then what good are they for?

If you have any questions about my project, goshawks, raptors, or ecology in general, I'd be glad to try and answer them for you. You'll find a "Comments & Questions" link on the bottom of each page of this text.

It would be nice if I could make this work more slick-like, but hey, I'm a Wildlife Biologist, not a JAVA programmer.

Graphics and photos on these pages were created by and are © Mike Shipman. All Rights Reserved. If you would like to use any of them, please contact me.

Copyright © 1999 Contact Blue Planet Photography Nampa, Idaho www.blueplanetphoto.com/feature/gos1.htm