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A Record Number of Successful Northern Goshawk Nests has been Found in LVM forests

 Regular northern goshawk monitoring carried out by environmental experts of JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) allows monitoring the success of nesting of the protected bird. This year, as part of the northern goshawk monitoring, 195 territories were surveyed, finding 116 inhabited nests. This year, there was a record number of successful nests found in the forests of Latvia – 81 nests.

“The number of inhabited northern goshawk territories has increased significantly – in 2015, when the monitoring was started, there were only 50 of them. Like previous years, this year the most successful nests had three babies, while 12 nests had even four babies each,” LVM Environmental Expert Aigars Kalvāns comments on the results of the monitoring.

LVM environmental experts have also recorded a record number of newly found nests – a total of 36 new nests. The largest number – 14 new nests – was found in Southern Latgale region.

This year, an unusual case happened in Zemgale region near Kandava, where a northern goshawk successfully nested in a nest of common buzzards in a group of ecological trees in a young stand. This is a very atypical case for northern goshawks, since they mostly nest in old stands, far away from open areas.