Hawk Assault: Agile Hunters on a Wing

Tramping down the path after a birding session on Delhi’s Northern Ridge one morning, I looked up to see a crow-sized dark brown bird, its wings spread, golden eyes blazing purposefully, heading straight for me, at speed. Instinctively I ducked and could feel the wind under its wings ruffle my hair. I turned around to check it out, but it had vanished. But I knew it was a shikra (Accipiter badius), my all-time favourite hawk. I also knew it was not trying to gouge my eyes out but had probably spotted a squirrel, lizard or bird somewhere behind me.

We use the term “hawk” to refer to an assortment of raptors – excluding, perhaps, eagles and vultures. But “true” hawks comprise a much smaller group — just eight species belonging to the genus Accipiter (many are close cousins). Of these, the shikra has to be the most commonly encountered: it’s a small woodland hawk, about the size of a crow (30-36 cm) that hunts birds, small mammals (like squirrels and rodents) and insects in wooded areas, including rambling parks and gardens around the country. When spotted, alarm cries ring out in the woods as frantic squirrels and small birds scurry for cover.

Gentleman shikras wear silvery-grey and white suits with a fine pale rufous weave-like striping across the breast. The ladies are larger and darker brown. Young shikras are dark brown above, white below, and more tellingly, have vertical rufous stippling and spotting down their breasts. Shikras (like all raptors) have excellent eyesight and hearing, often pair for life, and their short, broad wings and long tails help them deftly jink and swerve between trees and bushes at speed while chasing prey.

At a retreat several years ago, I was standing idly on my balcony listening to pied starlings and mynas jabber nineteen-to-the-dozen as they flew into the trees to roost. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a shikra zoomed out into the clearing, swift as a combat aircraft, extended its talons and slammed into the hapless pied myna it had targeted, driving its talons deep into the squawking bird’s breast. Both fell onto the grass, the shikra straddling the squawking myna, mantling it with its wings and beginning to pluck it as you would a chicken. Alarm calls rang out, but the deed had been done, and for the shikra, dinner had been self-served. The moment it became aware that I was watching, it took off with the dead, partially eaten myna firmly in its talons. On another occasion at the Ridge, I encountered a shikra, its wings up like an avenging angel, advancing along a dead tree branch towards a frantically squeaking squirrel backing away from it. At the last moment, the squirrel turned tail and fled into the trees, leaving a very annoyed hunter in its wake. Yet again, at lunchtime one afternoon, I heard a soft “whump!” from the garden and peered out of the window. There, a gentleman shikra was squatting on the grass, its wings unfurled, atop the rose-ringed parakeet it had ambushed and flattened.

Shikras are ambush hunters. They’ll sit hunched amidst thick foliage and pounce at speed at unsuspecting victims. Or they might swoop low over trees and bushes in which they know small birds are roosting, creating panic. Unlike their perhaps more famous distant relatives, the falcons, which use their notched beaks to kill, shikras (and their ilk) use their fearsome fishhook-like talons, which they drive deep into their victims’ bodies.

These small hawks love soaring high in circles on thermals, flapping several times then coasting in ascending spirals, their silhouettes reminding you of the spitfire fighters of World War II. While courting (in spring and summer), they will indulge in heart-stopping aerobatics. They tend to pair for life, building untidy crow-like homes 15 to 30 m up in trees, where they bring up two or three young. A family has been nesting in the Nicholson cemetery that overlooks my bedroom for years now, and I’m aware of their presence by their shrill, challenging “titu-titu” calls that ring out every day.

These gutsy little birds have been trained in the past (the Mughals were great admirers of the raptors and kept every kind for hunting purposes) to take down quail, partridge, and even larger birds.

The shikra is a resident bird and can be easily confused in the field (even Salim Ali mentioned this) with the Eurasian sparrowhawk, which is partially resident (in the mountains) and largely migrant (I like to call them “Angrezi-shikras!”).

   

The northern goshawk and southern goshawk, now both called crested goshawks (Accipiter trivirgatus), are larger (36-40 cm), forest-dwelling cousins of the shikra with similar habits. They are dark brown on top, tipped off with charcoal grey-black foreheads, crowns, and occipital crests. Their breasts are white with broad streaks, and their underparts are a rich rufous. Gentlemen and ladies are alike, though the ladies are much larger. They are not easy to winkle out, though they may be spotted soaring in circles high above forests and forest villages all over the country. Their diet is similar to that of the shikra’s: birds, reptiles, insects, and small mammals like rodents.

These compact hawks are not lacking in courage: a furious gentleman shikra is said to have seriously injured a photographer in the eye while the latter was trying to return a fallen fledgling — the work of crows — to its home. And perhaps, it is indeed prudent to keep a low profile when you hear that shrill, challenging “titu-titu- ti-ti-ti” war cry ring out when you’re rambling in dappled woodlands and parks.