Accipiters have always fascinated me! On the ranch I grew up on, off the Shamwari road, between the Munyati and Sebakwe rivers, near the town of Kwe Kwe in what was then Cental Africa's Rhodesia, I often witnessed the ambush hunts of the small accipiters around the house. The accipters I saw were mainly the Gabar Goshawk, Little Banded Goshawk and Little Sparrowhawk. Today, most probably there are few of these birds left in the areas I grew up on. The farms have been turned into blighted wastelands overrun with swarms of subsistence farmers who have invaded the countryside and destroyed much of the land of Zimbabwe. The result of the brute foolishness of Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe. But in 1966 I was a 13 year old student at Falcon College near todays Esigodini in Southern Zimbabwe. I was lucky enough to have as my english teacher the already world renowned bird photographer and naturalist Peter Steyn. Peter often took members of the naturalist club at the school out on weekend outings when he went out to search for birds nests or check on the status of nests he had already found. On one occasion we visited the site of a Black Sparrowhawk nest. On Peters directions one of the pupils climbed the tree and handed me a chick that I then had to hold on the drive back to the school. Peter had already seen some of my pencil drawings and encourage me to draw the bird as it feathered in an outside enclosure. This bird was the foundation of my fascination with big accipiters. It was also the first Black Sparrowhawk to leave Africa, as I believe Peter sent it to legendary british falconer Jack Mavrogordato.

One of the grails of falconry is Jack rabbit hunting with a Goshawk. The apex of this is to catch the massive White-tailed Jacks. That live high in the mountains and hills of the American west. I have yet to hunt these big monsters..but I have hunted the slightly smaller black tails. The vastness and open spaces of the Great Basin that encompasses parts of Oregon, Nevada and Utah and drains into the great Salt Lake is something to behold. Not even in remote parts of South West Africa have I felt such loneliness and vast openness. To walk through the sage country with a Norther Goshawk on outstretched arm is a sensation second to few others.

The Gold and Ochres of the land mix with the Grey of the bird....

...and the blue of the sky!

Suddenly the hawk will flash off my fist in a burst of stunning power! If the slope is good I can see the whole chase, even as I start to run to meet the cloud of dust and squeals of the Jack-rabbit. I have to get there quickly to help the hawk dispatch the jack before this powerful quarry can damage feathers or hurt the bird.

I allow the triumphant hawk to mantle over her quarry and pluck and break in before transferring her off to the lure and giving her a good crop of food.

The end of a succcessful hunt with a Black-tailed Jack in the bag.