Crested Goshawk, Zhongshan Park, Shanghai, 13 May 2017. (Wāng Jìn Róng [汪进荣])

Crested Goshawk Invades Shanghai

by Craig Brelsford
Founder, shanghaibirding.com

Crested Goshawk has sunk its talons into Shanghai. In the past year, records of the species have come from various locations throughout the city, in all four seasons. This past spring, a pair may have bred at Gongqing Forest Park.

It is remarkable that Crested Goshawk, a species of tropical and subtropical Asia, is even as far north as the Yangtze River. Most field guides show Accipiter trivirgatus indicus, the mainland form, occurring no farther north than Hangzhou. However, members of Shanghai Birding, the WeChat companion to this Web site, have reported Crested Goshawk in Nanjing and Nantong (Jiangsu). Other authorities record Crested Goshawk in Anhui, Henan, and even Beijing.

If the forest-loving goshawk has invaded the coastal, little-wooded, highly urbanized world of Shanghai, then it is not surprising that it would be using urban parks. Some of the parks of Shanghai, such as 102-year-old Zhongshan Park, where I found a pair of Crested Goshawk on 8 Sept., have massive trees and resemble old-growth forests.

Like the avifauna of islands, the birds of urban Shanghai’s green islands live in isolation. Except for stray cats and an occasional Siberian Weasel, urban residents Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Light-vented Bulbul, and Chinese Blackbird have few predators and are abundant.

With the imbalance comes an opportunity for raptors that can tolerate the noise and bustle of Earth’s Largest City. For Crested Goshawk, the pluses of urban living are apparently outweighing the minuses. It has come to feed on the rich store of passerines as well as mammals such as Pallas’s Squirrel.

On 16 May at Pudong’s Century Park, Shanghai Birding member Xueping Popp captured a Crested Goshawk exploiting the imbalance.

Crested Goshawk
Crested Goshawk devouring Chinese Blackbird, Century Park, May. About this incident, photographer Xueping Popp wrote: ‘I went to Century Park early in the morning to look for Black Bittern. Nothing happened, so I decided to walk a little in the park. Suddenly I heard the cries of Chinese Blackbird. I looked up and saw a Crested Goshawk standing in the nest and eating a chick piece by piece. The scene was brutal, but Crested Goshawk was doing what raptors are supposed to do. I observed the whole process silently until the goshawk finished its meal.’ (Stephan Popp & Xueping Popp)

Shanghai Birding member Wāng Jìn Róng (汪进荣) was one of the first birders to record Crested Goshawk in Shanghai. Jìn Róng has seen the species at Zhongshan Park and Gongqing Forest Park as well as on the grounds of the Shanghai Zoo. Jìn Róng took the photo at the top of this post as well as the photos immediately below. All were taken at Zhongshan Park—the photo above this past May, the photos below last December.

Crested Goshawk
Crested Goshawk, Zhongshan Park, December. Note the dark mesial stripe on white throat, heavy brownish to rufous streaking on the breast, and heavy rufous barring on the belly. The small nuchal crest is not seen here, being most obvious when the goshawk is in profile. Wāng Jìn Róng (汪进荣).

The Crested Goshawk below, photographed by Shanghai Birding member Kai Pflug at Cape Nanhui, may have been in transit. Cape Nanhui has little tree cover beyond its famous microforests (where Kai got this photo), and Crested Goshawk is rarely recorded there.

Crested Goshawk
Crested Goshawk, Cape Nanhui, April. Note large size but slim build and wings whose tips barely exceed the base of the tail. The short, rounded wings and long tail are adaptions to maneuvering through thick forest. (Kai Pflug)

Have you seen Crested Goshawk or other raptors in your city? Tell us your story in the comments below.

RESOURCES ON CRESTED GOSHAWK

Most field guides to Shanghai birds show outdated range maps for Accipiter trivirgatus indicus. Among them are Birds of East Asia (Brazil), A Field Guide to the Birds of China (MacKinnon & Phillipps), Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol. 2, and Raptors of the World (Ferguson-Lees & Christie).

The media below offer a clearer picture of the current status in China of Crested Goshawk.

Shanghai Birding
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Brelsford, Craig, moderator. Shanghai Birding, a WeChat group. The subject of Crested Goshawk generated discussions with various birders, among them Jiangsu birders Scoter and maidong, who had information about Crested Goshawk in Nanjing and Nantong. Hangzhou birder Cheng Qian reported on the distribution of Crested Goshawk in Zhejiang. Beijing-based member Paul Holt alerted us to scholarship on the changing distribution of Crested Goshawk and shared records of the species from Anhui and Beijing. Guangdong-based member Jonathan Martinez wrote about breeding Crested Goshawk in Hunan.

eBird. 2019. eBird Range Map—Crested Goshawk. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [Web application]. eBird, Ithaca, New York. (Accessed: 21 April 2022).

The eBird Range Map shows points on the Earth where checklists with Crested Goshawk have been submitted. The map shows Crested Goshawk in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan as well as Shanghai.

Fei, Y.-L., Lei, M., Zhang, Y. and Lu, C.-H. Geographic Distribution Change of Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus). Chinese Journal of Zoology 45 (2010): 174–175.
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Craig Brelsford

Craig Brelsford is the founder of shanghaibirding.com. Brelsford lived in Shanghai from 2007 to 2018. Now back home in Florida, Brelsford maintains close ties to the Shanghai birding community and continues his enthusiastic development of this website. When Brelsford departed China, he was the top-ranked eBirder in that country, having noted more than 930 species. Brelsford was also the top-ranked eBirder in Shanghai, with more than 320 species. Brelsford’s photos of birds have won various awards and been published in books and periodicals and on websites all over the world. Brelsford’s Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of China, published in its entirety on this website, is the most Shanghai-centric field guide ever written. Brelsford is a graduate of the University of Florida and earned a master's in business administration at the University of Liege, Belgium.

2 thoughts on “Crested Goshawk Invades Shanghai”

  1. This past spring, on April 22, the 12th Shanghai Citizen Birding Competition was held at Shanghai Zoo. Our team met Crested Goshawk several times, and the other teams also got records. I firstly got a long-distance image when the bird soared over Goose-Duck Lake. Then we met a pair near Tiger-Lion Hill. The male quickly flew over, and the female rested on the treetop, just over our heads. I got clear photos. When Crested Goshawk rests, the local residents like Chinese Blackbird make big noise trying to repel it away. It stopped for several minutes and then disappeared.

  2. May in Nanjing is a good birding season for birders. One Saturday morning I came to the Laoshan to watch the birds. There are many egret nests in the pines at the foot of the mountain. At the top of a tree I saw a Chinese Pond Heron, and after a while, it turned into a bird of prey. Wow,it was a Crested Goshawk.

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