The Fearless Bush Hawk

Forest and Bird, Issue 173, 1 August 1969, Page 17

The Fearless Bush Hawk

I HAVE always admired the bush hawk, whose acrobatic skill and fearlessness soon impressed me. I recall the following memories of the bird. I was walking with two companions on the hills above Waikouaiti when I saw a bush hawk sitting on a fence which bounded the road we were walking on. He did not seem concerned at our approach. I had a stick in my hand. Even though I was an adult, the small boy in me made me hurl the stick at the bird as we approached it, not, I plead, to harm him, but to see what his reaction would be and indeed to teach him to make way respectfully for the human species. His reaction was splendid. He shot up into the air and dived (stooped) straight at my head, striking my cap contemptuously as he came.

A friend of mine was bringing up the rear of a large party of trampers in the Wilkin Valley. The party had disturbed a nesting bush hawk which was diving at them to

frighten them off. My friend, a solitary figure a little behind the main body, became the bird’s chief target while the others enjoyed the fun. My friend, wanting to teach the bird a lesson, at the last second of a dive, shot the handle of his ice axe straight up above his head into the bird’s line of flight. This went on for many stoops. The bird would swerve at the last moment and avoid what seemed to my friend and. the other onlookers an inevitable crash.

A man who has a deer-hunting camp in the Landsborough Valley has told me that he has seen the bush hawk (and photographed it in the act) take trout-from the river and proceed to eat them. I can understand that this would be possible. Trout moving up on their way to spawn often struggle through very shallow but swift-flowing water and would be very vulnerable with their backs sticking up out of the water.

—H. P. KIDSON, Wanaka