The Northern Goshawk is a native hawk to the mountains of the southwest, including the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. This large hawk is blue-gray with black on the upper body. The tale is gray with black stripes. The goshawk migrates in some parts of the country, but not in Arizona.
The habitat for the Northern Goshawk is upper elevations among pine and fir trees. This hawk has no fear of humans, and will attack you if you get too close to their nest. This behavior was well known, and used to warn people of the fierceness Attila the Hun, with him wearing the image displayed on his helmet.
The Goshawk name comes from Old English words meaning goose and hawk. The name is pronounced by keeping the syllables separate; as in Gos-Hawk.
If you were to see a number of goshawks, you would say you saw a “flight”, “gross”, “glare” or even “couple and a half” of them.
Reference: The Nature of Madera Canyon by Douglas W. Moore, Friends of Madera, 1999; Whatbird.com
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