Expert hiding skills reveal hawk's secrets

It's just before dawn in a remote patch of bush on Queensland's Cape York Peninsula and Chris MacColl is carefully inspecting his hidey-hole for snakes and spiders.

They don't make for good company in the small, cramped space where he's about to spend who knows how long, in extreme humidity, heat and mozzie-plagued discomfort.

He's also hoping the feral pigs and dingoes don't come prowling round again.

Inside the low, tee-pee like structure, meticulously camouflaged with the detritus of the forest, is his one creature comfort - a camp chair where he'll sit and wait for one of Australia's rarest bird of prey.

The official estimate is that there are 1340 red goshawks left. But Mr MacColl is pretty confident it's a lot less than that, maybe only 800 or so.

Regardless, the striking hawk with its heavy yellow legs and feet and reddish-brown plumage is in trouble, and there's an urgency to his elaborate trap-and-track missions.

Just last year, two fledglings the University of Queensland PhD student managed to catch in a net-style trap and then tag near Weipa gave up a startling new secret when they flew across the Gulf of Carpentaria.

That long journey - over a vast body of water thought to act as a dispersal barrier - blew up the long-held notion that Australia had three separate populations.

One of those two youngsters ultimately ended up on a property in south west Queensland, more than 1350 kilometres from Weipa.

"Previously it was thought there was an east coast population, a northern Australia one, and one on the Tiwi Islands," Mr MacColl says.

"But we can infer, from the scale of the movements we've seen these birds undertake, that it's all one connected population. We are literally redrawing the distribution map for this species, just by tracking a few birds."

Having good data on the goshawk's travels means the full scope of its habitat can be understood, and hopefully that will mean enough of it is preserved to help the species stabilise and recover.

The juvenile female that was tracked to south west Queensland ended up on Marion Downs.

Happily, the sprawling cattle station is part of a deal between the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the North Australian Pastoral Company to preserve and improve ecosystems for threatened species.

"There's only a handful of records of anyone every seeing red goshawks in the arid zone (where Marion Downs is located)," Mr MacColl says.

"It's a total mystery as to what they do in those environments, given they are really viewed as a forest dwelling hawk."

One theory is that they might go to more sparsely vegetated region to hone their hunting skills.

Another is that the young birds might have been pushed out by territorial pairs, who aggressive guard their patches.

But what Mr MacColl knows for sure is the more that's known about the species, where it goes and why, the better its prospects will be.

"As we redraw the distribution map for the red goshawk, obviously there's a whole lot more places and environments need to be protected, or managed, or at least considered when it comes to this species."

The raptor biologist will spend the next two years at his desk, working through the data flowing from his work in the field.

As tough as his trap and tag missions were - having to expertly hide from his sharp-eyed quarry in order to catch it - there are some things he'll miss.

"It's kind of nice in a way. It's a different perspective because none of the wildlife are aware of your presence.

"So you hear the bird song start from the very first species, which is always the blue-winged kookaburra calling while it's still dark.

"Then the dawn chorus picks up, and you can have any number of animals come in and walk by you, and have no idea that you're there."