Apologies for the heading but at the time I really thought this was going to happen !
Last Summer whilst I was working on someone's garden, I saw this Sparrow Hawk on top of the Pergola in a Neighbours garden. Dropping my tools I went for my Samsung Galaxy 5 phone hoping to catch a photo/video of it but it was too far awy to get a decent image. As I focussed on it, it appeared to spot me behind the lattice fence and seemed to be eyeing me up. It then swooped down toward me almost touching me with it's wing as it flew past. I'd closed my eyes as I though I was seriously going to be attacked, I don't know why, however, I could sense it had landed in the tree behind me. Whilst still intent on trying to get a picture of it, I turned the camera on my phone onto reverse so I did not have to turn around myself for fear of frightening it off. On the screen, I could see what is shown here in the 1st image, you may well understand why I thought I was under attack, I had no Idea on what it was looking at but was convinced at the time that it was me. I took several pictures with my phone before it headed closer to me then flew off. It was only when I got home that on closer inspection of the images I could see (Image3, bottom right corner) that there was some kind of red meat on the tree branch in front of me that I hadn't noticed at the time this was all happening. It was probably some kill from earlier that it had returned for. Anyway, after all the excitement, I returned to the job in hand and continued with my customers garden.
I know the females take larger prey but I think even they would struggle to tackle a gardener
She did pose for good photos though.
Once focused on possible prey Sparrowhawks seem to become totally unaware or concerned with human presence and will only see the prey in their vision as they hone in on the target - we had a similar experience a few years ago when sitting out on the patio during warmer months when a Sparrowhawk had obviously seen something of interest behind us and flew straight towards us passing over our heads by just over a metre !! It was so quick that my husband and I both ducked in unison thinking it was going to collide with us ! Another time hubby was putting some garden canes at the back of the shed when he came within two metres of one perched up on the fence; it didn't move when hubby took a step forward; what my other half hadn't seen was a male blackbird sifting through the leaf litter under the laurel shrubs and the sprawk suddenly jumped down and grabbed it. Hubby had no option but to walk away and leave nature to take its course however uncomfortable he was with that.