Small for a male goshawk and at first I was a little disappointed but not for long, he was dynamite and had a determination which likened him to a flying Jack Russell.
He bagged moorhen, water rail, coots, ducks, rabbits, pheasants, crows, magpies and rats. As the years past we both worked instinctively, which means that as I worked cover in woods or hugh bramble patches he would follow. If there was no nearby perch, I would only need to hold up my arm and he would soon alight on it.
One of his early kills was a duck Mallard taken as she rose from the water, the duck took him back into the pond and dived. I managed to rescue Spike just before she drowned him.
That gave him an aversion to ducks of any kind for years, so reliable was this aversion that I could fly him over ornamental duck ponds to clear moorhens and he would never touch a duck.
Then one day he changed his mind and whacked a drake mallard as it rose from a stream and from then on duck were back on the menu.
