Yes, excellent photo for such a quick shot, and congratulations for having one
in your garden. We had one until our neighbour's rabbits had all been eaten.
This is one of our favourite species to argue about here, and we normally have
a much blurrier photo to look at. I would have called the chest blotchy, rather
than striped.
I'm interested to know if we can tell for sure if this isn't a Collared
Sparrowhawk (CSH). The male Brown Goshawk (BG) and female CSH sizes overlap, so
the size doesn't help unless it's huge or tiny and you can estimate the length.
The fierce brow indicates BG to me, but sometimes I see a photo that looks
fierce enough for BG and I'm told it's a CSH, or vice versa. Same for the stout
legs.
We can't see the tip of its tail to see if it's rounded or square. Relative
middle toes length matters, but some say you need to actually measure it to be
sure.
Welcome to birding-aus, Greg.
Peter Shute
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