Gos chase

By Robert Macfarlane

I went to the Peak District in search of my first wild goshawk. The goshawk, or "gos", is the berserker of British raptors, a sparrowhawk on steroids. It's a magnificent creature, furious and burly, with a barred chest and a white eyebrow arch of feathers. In older goshawks, the irises darken to a diabolic red. They're fierce birds, forest birds—and also rare birds. I've only met one goshawk before, a female flown by a falconer I know. She was skittish, she was beautiful, and her name was Mabel. The falconer and I drank tea in a front room with the curtains drawn, while Mabel sat on her bow-perch, blinking in the half-light.

I long to see a gos in flight, in the wild. "So come up!" said my friend John, who has lived in the Peak District his whole life. "We'll go looking. Goshawks are hard to see but we might get lucky."