Nature Notes with Graham Workman: The Grey Ghost

"The Grey Ghost" (Accipiter gentilis).

A brief history of the goshawk and falconry.

Falconers have trained goshawks for more than 2,000 years. The birds were once called “cook's hawk” for their success at snaring meat for the pot.

The name goshawk originates from the Old English "goose hawk" due to the birds' ability and that it favours birds as its quarry.

Females are usually considerably larger than the males which means taking down birds the size of a goose is no problem.

In medieval European society, the type of raptor a person flew was a strong indicator of their social status. The goshawk was high in this hierarchy:

Emperor – golden eagle

King - gyrfalcon

Earl - Peregrine falcon

Yeoman (a landowner or a person of the gentry) - goshawk or hobby

Its scientific name, accipiter gentilis, translates as "noble hawk," reflecting that only the nobility were traditionally permitted to fly one.

The common people were not allowed to practice falconry, only the royal family and nobility were privileged to do so.

The birds were highly sought-after, and some were worth an absolute fortune.

They were also often exchanged as diplomatic gifts among rulers.

In England the theft of a trained raptor was punishable by death under Edward III.

In Tudor England, King Henry VIII became an avid falconer as he grew older.

His daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, also practised falconry.

The French King Louis XIII kept more than 300 raptors in his aviaries and they were divided into six different groups, depending on which type of game they were trained to hunt.

The "Grand Fauconnier du Royaume de France" (Master Falconer of the Kingdom of France) was employed by the king to supervise everything from the breeding of his birds to the planning of the hunts.

It was an extremely high-status title that only a nobleman could earn, so prestigious in fact that the master falconer would sit in the fourth seat from the King at the dining table!

By the end of the 19th century goshawks were all but extinct as a breeding bird in the UK.

This was mainly due to loss of woodland habitat and persecution.

Deliberate and accidental reintroductions have seen the population slowly recover, with an estimated 542 birds in 2017: an incredibly low population and on the edge of becoming extinct again.

Thanks to careful conservation, there are now more than 100 pairs north of the border.

The population has grown significantly in recent decades due to reduced persecution and access to prey like grey squirrels.

The UK-wide estimate is now around 1,200 pairs in total for the UK (England, Scotland, Wales).

A significant portion of these are in England, with numbers rising, though they are still considered rare and hard to spot.

Another name for the goshawk is "grey ghost" which again suits the bird with near supernatural powers of not being seen and if disturbed just vanishes silently into the forest.