Little Jerry was affectionally named because she was originally hatched in Germany in 1990 and was imported into this country the following year.
My first sighting of her was through a peep hole in the side of an enclosure aviary in the summer of 1994.

In a way I was cajoled into purchasing her, I had been fancying the idea of getting a “gos to fly” after many years totally dominated by eagle flying. I fancied a gos as an addition and originally thought of getting a parent reared eyas.

It was a falconer friend and keen goshawk aficionado who persuaded me to consider this adult female that resided in a breeding pen. He wanted an adult male for his hunting German female who he wanted to breed from.
Apparently this pair of goshawks had been together for three years without success and the owner wanted to sell the pair. If I took the female my friend could have the male.

When I looked at her for the first time I liked her but she was pale which turned out to be sun faded feathers as she had not started to moult even though it was June.

This photograph was taken eighteen months later after a complete moult and she was now looking a different hawk. Little Jerry was trained and flown for a season in Germany and as luck would have it she had been trained by a very skilled falconer. As she began to remember her basic training, her good manners and her knowledge of working in partnership with a dog came to the for.