I was aware of the presence of a pair of Crested Goshawk in Taman Melawati about a year ago (back in February 2010). Sometimes you would bump into them catching mice near Taman Melawati Secondary School. I was curious to find out more about the pair when I was told by my son Ilyas that he had seen 4 hawks in the trees in front of his school. Hopped on my little scooter for a two-minute cruise to the school . Upon parking the bike I scanned the area and immediately spotted one adult Goshawk preening herself in the early morning sunshine.
Satisfied with the shots I had taken I went to a fruiting fig tree behind the school where Ilyas said he saw a few what could be Oriental-Pied Hornbills. It was a no show and on my way out of the school compound ( in front of the guard house) I looked upwards towards a tree right in the middle of the road divider and saw a large nest; it was hardly 20 ft off the ground. I was told by Pakcik Man, the school guard that there were two young birds which had flown away from the nest about two weeks earlier and the nest now looked inactive.
Without any high expectation I went back there at about 5.30pm and to my surprise there they were, a young Goshawk on the nest and an adult bird (partially hidden behind the tree branch). The fledgling was feeding on something that the adult had brought to the nest, I assume that the fledgling was still too young to hunt.
Image quality ( 2 pics above and below) is not very good, tried using a 1.4xTC on the D7000 + 300mm f/4. I find that the quality of the cropped images ‘without the TC setup’ is much better.
The young bird flew from the nest to a nearby tree, I could see that she still has a lot to learn about flight in general. It was more like gliding from tree to tree than actually flying.
