Grey Goshawk

The Grey Goshawk is Queensland's rarest species of Accipiter [Latin for 'hawk'], and is a tricky species to locate, being only intermittent spotted at most locations (on record/report). It is a distinctive __bird of prey__ (on insects, small lizards and small animals), with fully grey or white plumage and yellow beaks and legs. 

 

Queensland Grey Goshawk (magnified distant picture)

We were lucky to have spotted one [on our property] and have taken a picture to put on record. We also have a reason for the hawk's coming. We have been providing some food for lorrikeets (and other birds like native noisy miners, green-faced honey eaters, brush turkeys, galahs, and leather-head honey eaters). 

Lorrikeets at feed time

So the goshawk (nearly 10 times (30 cm from head to tail) the size of a lorrikeet came to prey. Last winter and spring were so dry that hardly any wild grasses had grains or wild flowers had nectar. The drought had impacted very vast areas from coast to desert inland. So we shared what we could.  

The famine was not the only hardship, a report from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) :  Lorikeets are the most common species of native animals we treat at our Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre. Last year our RSPCA wildlife team cared for 3,065 lorikeets and from spring through to summer - the vast majority of patients are presenting with Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS). [ https://www.rspcaqld.org.au/blog/wildlife-conservation/lorikeet-paralysis-syndrome ]

The cause is still unknown, but a plant species African Tulip Tree with toxin in every part of the tree --including nectar in the flowers, known to have killed a lot of native bees, is suspected. 

African tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata; แคแสด, captain Cook tree, flame of the forest, fountain tree, and fireball) – woody core boiled to dress arrow heads; nectar poisonous - killing native bees and birds; used as herbal medicines in many African regions.  

Let us stop and think a little more, if a [flower] plant we want to grow in our gardens may be dangerous to wildlife and or our children or our pets. There are a worldful of safer alternatives to choose from.