ArticleThe Journal of experimental biology2015
When hawks attack: animal-borne video studies of goshawk pursuit and prey-evasion strategies.
Article in The Journal of experimental biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Optimal locomotor strategy for predator avoidance in fish prey.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Changing Flight and Flocking Dynamics of Homing Pigeons (Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Behavioural response of prey to repeated attacks by non-coordinating predators.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Gaze tracking of large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) in a motion capture system.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Strategic predatory pursuit of the stealthy, highly manoeuvrable, slow flying batProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Visual versus visual-inertial guidance in hawks pursuing terrestrial targets.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Density of predating Asian hornets at hives disturbs the 3D flight performance of honey bees and decreases predation success.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Hoverfly (Eristalis tenax) pursuit of artificial targets.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Gap selection and steering during obstacle avoidance in pigeons.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Through Hawks' Eyes: Synthetically Reconstructing the Visual Field of a Bird in Flight.International journal of computer vision · 2023Article
- Head-tracking of freely-behaving pigeons in a motion-capture system reveals the selective use of visual field regions.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The persistent-predation strategy of the red lionfish (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Responsive robotic prey reveal how predators adapt to predictability in escape tactics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Responses of turkey vultures to unmanned aircraft systems vary by platform.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Flexible prediction of opponent motion with internal representation in interception behavior.Biological cybernetics · 2021Article
- Fine-scale changes in speed and altitude suggest protean movements in homing pigeon flights.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Bat target tracking strategies for prey interception.Communicative & integrative biology · 2021Article
- Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Video filmed by a camera mounted on the head of a Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) was used to study how the raptor used visual guidance to pursue prey and land on perches. A combination of novel image analysis methods and numerical simulations of mathematical pursuit models was used to determine the goshawk's pursuit strategy. The goshawk flew to intercept targets by fixing the prey at a constant visual angle, using classical pursuit for stationary prey, lures or perches, and usually using constant absolute target direction (CATD) for moving prey. Visual fixation was better maintained along the horizontal than vertical direction. In some cases, we observed oscillations in the visual fix on the prey, suggesting that the goshawk used finite-feedback steering. Video filmed from the ground gave similar results. In most cases, it showed goshawks intercepting prey using a trajectory consistent with CATD, then turning rapidly to attack by classical pursuit; in a few cases, it showed them using curving non-CATD trajectories. Analysis of the prey's evasive tactics indicated that only sharp sideways turns caused the goshawk to lose visual fixation on the prey, supporting a sensory basis for the surprising frequency and effectiveness of this tactic found by previous studies. The dynamics of the prey's looming image also suggested that the goshawk used a tau-based interception strategy. We interpret these results in the context of a concise review of pursuit-evasion in biology, and conjecture that some prey deimatic 'startle' displays may exploit tau-based interception.
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