Hawk Attack on Goose

[Boomerwaffen]

Too bad you can't send the hawk out my way. I have a Sebastopol gander who LIVES to do battle with the hawks. I have never seen anything like it. He is totally fearless, and I'm sure that someday that will be his demise. I have literally had to get between him and my 105lb Chessie dog to break up the fights. My dog is great with all of my birds around here, but he and that gander are oil and water. The dog will charge him, and he stands there and takes him on. It's pretty funny actually, and he holds his own against the big dog.

So far, I have seen him with my own eyes, intercept a dive bombing Coopers hawk on two separate occasions. The first time, the hawk took off in shock as to what had just happened to him. The second time, the goose actually got a good grip on him and was beating him to death with his wings. I'm not a big hawk fan, but I saw what a horrific beating the hawk was getting and I made the goose release him. The hawk ran off into the woods, missing a few feathers and temporarily unable to fly. I haven't seen him back since.

This goose is as sweet as can be around people, but he just flat out hates anything that he percieves as a threat to him or the flock. I'm sure that one day he will pick a fight with the wrong predator and that will be the end of him, but for now, I'm glad to have him watching over things when I'm not there. If someone else had told me about a goose like this it would be hard to believe and I would be skeptical, but I have witnessed this bad boy in action. He is amazing, and worth his weight in gold.

Great story. We live in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern Taxifornia. We have a large Embden gander named “Fat Tony” that was hand raised and is extremely gentle, quiet and docile. However Tony flat out hates hawks. One day my wife was out in a huge open area on our property surrounded by giant fir trees. With her were out at the time two young Toulouse geese. They were about 3lbs at that time and still had some fuzz on their necks. Fat Tony was about 80 feet away waddling back to the coop. All of a second a hawk I think a Cooper’s hawk dive bombed my wife and the goslings. Fat Tony (at least 30lbs by then) let out a very loud angry scream and launched into the air after the hawk in a dive. The hawk saw the size of the freight train coming and veered off for the tree line down by the pond with Fat Tony in hot pursuit. Tony landed just short of the tree line honking with wings spread towards the direction where the hawk fled. Caught the whole thing on video. That hawk has been here since we bought the property several years ago before we had any poultry. Subsequently after talking with our neighbors across the valley that free range with geese as well. We let our birds out. Occasionally we see that hawk it even does a rare fly over when the birds are out. But Tony sees it every time and screams at it. Since the day he flew after it, it has never made an attempt at another bird. Also after clear the brush off several acres years ago I put out various plastic owls and a plastic hawk to discourage the blue jays eating the seed. After we got Tony, we’ve had to hide the plastic hawk as if he sees it he will attack it.