Bird snapped by Newhaven wildlife sanctuary ecologist is likely a juvenile on risky 1,500km journey away from parents, expert says
Recent wet weather in the arid plains of central Australia prompted the wildlife ecologist and bird enthusiast Dr Tim Henderson to stop last week at a small lake to see if any waterbirds had shown up.
While there, above his head came a sight many birdwatchers wait a lifetime for: the red goshawk, Australia’s rarest bird of prey. It had a throat full of food, and was in a location it had never been photographed and had not been recorded at for about 30 years.
Henderson had to pinch himself.
“It looked like something I didn’t recognise,” said Henderson, who leads a team of ecologists at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Newhaven wildlife sanctuary, a vast reserve about 300km west of Alice Springs.
“I thought, ‘surely it’s not a red goshawk’.
“I snapped a few photographs, but i didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
Dr Rich Seaton, of BirdLife Australia, reviewed Henderson’s pictures and confirmed he had indeed snapped a red goshawk.
“It’s a unique-looking bird of prey, but they can be very tricky to identify in the field,” Seaton said.
“It has beautiful, barred plumage; long, broad wings with finger-like feathers; and big feet and talons for hunting other birds.”
The “fearsome” red goshawks hunt birds as big as sulphur-crested cockatoos and kookaburras, he said.
“They are incredibly fast and impressive flyers and can chase down prey from a standing start.”
Newhaven wildlife sanctuary in the Northern Territory
Research suggests that over the past 40 years the red goshawk – which can measure 60cm long and with a wingspan of more than a metre – has disappeared from at least one-third of its breeding area, and may be barely hanging on in another third.
Its population is estimated between 900 and 1,400 mature individuals, but Seaton is concerned the true number may be even lower.
The bird had its federal status changed from vulnerable to the more precarious endangered in 2023. Threats include loss and fragmentation of habitat from mining, agriculture, forestry and urban development, as well as changing patterns of bushfire.
The goshawk seen by Henderson was likely a juvenile, according to Chris MacColl, a PhD student at the University of Queensland who is researching the birds.
“Tim’s pictures are a hugely significant sighting,” he said. “It’s the first time it has been photographed in central Australia.”
Satellite tagging of the birds by MacColl has revealed that once they become a juvenile, they take a risky 1,500km journey from their parents near the northern coast into central Australia, spending about eight months there before returning.
It is unclear why the birds do that.
“They go into these drier parts of the continent and maybe they’re working out how to hunt and survive. We don’t even know what they’re eating,” MacColl said.
“Those that do survive go back to their costal breeding range and stay put there.”
