Counting a Secretive Bird: teacher key

Northern Goshawks, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. Goshawks are hard to count and hard to study, so many questions about them stay open. See how scientists weigh partial evidence about their numbers, ranges and forests.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Why are survey trends for goshawks inconclusive?
   • The species is seen so rarely on those surveys (answer)
   • They are counted every day
   • They live in cities
2. What did 20 adults in the Arizona study choose foraging sites by?
   • How many prey were there
   • Forest structure (answer)
   • Weather
3. What is debated about goshawk subspecies?
   • How big they are
   • What they eat
   • Whether they are valid (answer)
4. What do some New England managers suspect?
   • Numbers may be rising as forests grow back (answer)
   • Numbers are falling fast
   • Goshawks have left
5. Why do many goshawk studies give weak answers?
   • The birds are loud
   • The birds are secretive and hard to survey (answer)
   • The birds live in cities

Words

• subspecies: regional type
• migratory: seasonal traveling
• inconclusive: not settled