Sparrow hawk

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some help.  We have a really active bird community in our garden. Lots of different species. We live next to open farm land, our house is bordered by a large very high hedge and trees. Our bird feeder in the front garden is under a very large, wide spread oak tree. However, over the last few days we seem to have a sparrowhawk visiting and taking some of the birds. Young starlings and a blackbird. It lands in the garden quite brazenly. We have a great love for birds of prey and all birds but how can we deter this sparrowhawk. Watching the garden birds is one of our favourite things. Can anyone suggest anything. Thank you. 

  • The other birds of prey you see circling will probably hunt in a different manner and as Robbo says the Sparrowhawk may be a newcomer to the area. The hawks may have young to feed and so they naturally visiting the area with the best chance. I suppose you could stop feeding to reduce the number of birds in your garden but really this is just nature at work

    Pete

    Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can

  • I was thinking possibly most likely buzzards circling.

  • Thanks everyone for your advice and comments. Really appreciate it. We have decided to basically live and let live re the sparrowhawk. Having accepted that it might be a regular visitor along with the Jackdaws, Rooks, Jays etc we are continuing to feed our amazing garden birds as normal. However we haven’t seen the sparrowhawk for a couple of days. Thanks again everyone, so glad I joined this bird community.
  • Lynne, best to just sit back and enjoy nature showing off, better in real life than Springwatch on the telly

    Pete

    Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can