In January 2012, I received news that a pair of Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus) were nest building at Japanese Garden in Singapore.

As the Crested Goshawk was a rare resident species, I was excited to have a look and get some photos of the pair. A few avid photographer friends have observed that the birds tend to make their way from the adjacent Chinese Garden to Japanese Garden in the early morning with twigs for their nest.

On the morning I had some free time to check them out, I waited at the Japanese Garden side nearer to the nest, but they did not turn up. Fortunately, the birds were later seen landing at Chinese Garden near the bridge joining these two locales. Rushing there, I managed to find them after a short search. There was enough time to see them mating, but unfortunately my camera settings were not ideal, so the mating pictures turned out blurry.

I observed that they were cutting tree branches, and anticipated they will fly away to their nest location. Positioning myself near the bridge, I managed to capture one of them flying relatively low across water. Thankfully the weather was ideal and the flight path was relatively clear.

A while later, the other bird flew pass towards the same direction, but I was out of position and had to be content with my own initial flight shots. In the end, the nesting wasn’t successful. Occasionally one can still spot a Crested Goshawk at the same location in the morning. Here’s hoping that one day they nest again there.

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