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Crested Goshawk Tail-Wagging – A Possible Courtship Display
The Crested Goshawk (Lophospiza trivirgata) displays a variety of social behaviours. In courtship the male will offer food to the female as well as perform aerial displays. I have often observed these winnowing flight displays (Wells 1999) where the head is down, wings drooped & fluttered and undertail lowered tail with undertail coverts fluffed out. I have also observed chasing with dives and swoops.
This week I observed another behaviour that I have seen, but not been able to document in the past. I saw the male, early in the morning, perched high on a dead tree and frequently engaging in a tail-wagging behaviour. The tail-wagging could be quite vigorous at times. In between the bird was looking around and occasionally making calls (calls not recorded). This went on for about 15 minutes before the bird flew off and continued with a winnowing aerial display. Note also the ‘odd’ body movements at the very beginning of the video which are employed to triangulate the position of another bird/prey.
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, July 2025.

References:
1. Amar-Singh HSS. (2018). Crested Goshawk – courtship. Bird Ecology Study Group.
2. Clark, W. S. and J. S. Marks (2024). Crested Goshawk (Lophospiza trivirgata), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
3. Wells, D.R. (1999). The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula: Vol. 1 (Non-Passerines). Christopher Helm, London.