In my area even though the crows season had a few more weeks to go, the sight of the goshawk meant the big kills were over, that the season was over for me. Another area to the west, some 20 miles , all you'd see is red tailed hawks here and there and large fields -while feed was plentiful, not a crow in sight. When I was in nebraska along I-80 ; there'd be big empty corn fields and no crow activity at all. But alongside the road every couple of miles sitting on fence posts were red tailed hawks...don't get me wrong here, they are great as plastic decoys to attract crows with. However, owls have great difficulty seeing in day time and crows seem to know it!
To define a "big kill" for me was the first day I'd go -usually late September I'd get 55 crows witha partner btu after that a dozen was the norm until it dwindled down to half a dozen as the season wore on until it wasn't worth it to go any more, no matter where I went and this is when we had a dozen places to go until development took it all away or the farms dried up....but the goshawk is one of the crows most dreaded day time enemy. So too is the Coopers' hawk, a slightly smaller hawk but is crow sized and looks for all the world like a big Sharp shinned hawk.The females look brown and despite their different species sizes all look alike however the male goshawk is totally distinctive from the other two being a dark blue on teh back witha light gray on teh belly. All 3 hawks often come to decoys and will attack them although I never saw on actually grab one! Once a large female Coopers' hawk tried to grab our great horned owl!