A goshawk with a camera helmet has revealed how eye contact helps the bird home like a missile on to its prey.

The bird’s-eye-view from the video camera also showed scientists the evasion tactics employed by pheasants and rabbits to avoid being eaten. It revealed that the secret to staying alive was to break the goshawk’s steely gaze with a sharp sideways turn.

Amador Kane, from Haverford College, Pennsylvania, US, said: “In our videos you could see that only the sideways motion was effective at breaking the visual fix.

“Maybe what they are trying to do is counter the sensory abilities of the predator. They are trying to take advantage of the way the predator does its visual guidance to escape.”

To carry out the research, Kane teamed up with Dutch falconer Robert Musters, who has taken part in a number of studies of bird flight, and his two-and-a-half-year-old goshawk, Shinta.

Musters designed and built the tiny spy camera that was mounted on Shinta’s head before the bird was released into the wild.

After sifting through several hours of hunting footage, Kane selected 16 short pursuits that were studied in detail.

Analysing the videos allowed the scientists to extract information about Shinta’s hunting strategy and the evasive manoeuvres employed by her prey.

A hunt was found to consist of three stages. First, Shinta made a beeline for her prey, holding it in the centre of her gaze to minimise the time it took to reach the target.

Then, once the prey had been startled and was trying to escape, the goshawk switched to pursuit mode, keeping the hunted animal at a constant angle in her vision as she closed in.

Finally, Shinta switched strategy again, flying parallel to the fleeing prey while waiting for the perfect time to strike.

The sudden turns of prey intended to break the goshawk’s eye contact were revealed after the scientists studied the escape trajectories of rabbits and pheasants.

The findings appear in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

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