Look Who Came To Dinner

I had a different blog planned for this week. You will get that one a later date, but I was going to end it with a follow up to last weeks “Feed Them And They Will Come – The Return” blog. It seems birds must read my blogs here in Tonyrefail. The very next day after I posted that blog a Robin turned up in the garden, and has been present ever since. I have rarely seen a Robin around these parts, which has always struck me as odd. It seems to be a very good habitat for them. There are plenty of old out houses and gardens with nest boxes and feeders out. We have bramble patches and woodland fairly nearby. The plethora of House Sparrows on my feeders seems to back that argument up. So it was quite nice to see our most faithful of garden companions tucking into the sunflower heart mix I have out there. This all came to an abrupt end this morning …

The one thing about “feed them and they will come…” is you have no control over the guest list to your buffet cart. Sooner or later, if you have busy feeders like me, you will attract the interest of the local Sparrowhawk. I had seen evidence of Sparrowhawk activity in the garden a few times. The usual tell-tale signs of a patch of feathers scattered on the lawn. There was a House Sparrow kill left upon the roof of next doors conservatory, but there is also a local cat, which I could not rule out for committing the deadly deed. You can look at the scene of the “crime” and make an informed decision; Sparrowhawks tend to pluck feathers out neatly and cleanly, where as a cat tends to chew and leave wet and messy feathers, but with no actual sightings actually in the garden I could not confirm 100% who the killer was. I have only seen the local Sparrowhawk about three or four times since I moved back to my home town.

That made this morning’s double take as I looked, blearily eyed, out the kitchen window even more heart stopping. There, perched in all his majestic glory, on top of my bird feeder, was a male Sparrowhawk. The sparrows on the feeder had clearly scattered into the fern and other bolt holes that I have planted for such occasion. I am fairly certain that this individual is a young bird, as it had pale feathers on its back and it was a very clumsy hunter. Amazingly it hung around long enough for me to grab my camera, which had the wrong lens on it, no memory card in it, and was set for taking a family portrait, not a wildlife shot! Somehow I managed to quickly get everything set and I got a few shots of the bird, before it pounced on an unfortunate individual. It was hard to tell, but I thought it had got the Robin. Since starting this blog I have seen a Robin out the garden, so unless there was a second individual, it must have caught a sparrow.

I know seeing a Sparrowhawk kill a bird in your garden can be upsetting. Stephen Moss during the series Birds Britannica thought it was due to the lawn becoming extensions of our living rooms, and no one wants to see a Woodpigeon being dismembered in your living room. I am pragmatic about such things. The Sparrowhawk was only trying to feed himself, and during the breeding season, providing food for his brood. You always have to remember, the smaller garden birds always have multiple broods for this reason. It is a weight of numbers game. There is no evidence that Sparrowhawk kills are effecting populations of these birds, it has been extensively monitored for a number of years. Nature always finds its own balance.

According to Greek mythology, the King of Megara, Nisus, was turned into a Sparrowhawk after his daughter cut a lock of his purple hair off to present to his sworn enemy. The Sparrowhawk’s Latin name, accipiter nisus, is derived from this legend. Its name echoes throughout history. The name Spearhafoc, was in common usage at the time of the Battle Of Hastings. It was this which corrupted into Sparhawk, and then to the name we use today. Early ornithologists believed the Cuckoo turned into a Sparrowhawk during the winter months. It is now believed the Cuckoo uses its similarity to the Sparrowhawk to fool the birds into mobbing it so it can get access to the nest to lay its egg.

The male and female Sparrowhawk are strikingly different. The male, which is indeed the first male I have ever photographed properly, is much smaller than the female. It has a lovely blue-ish grey plumage. The female is about a quarter of the size larger than the male, one of the largest size differences in the bird world, and is a chestnut mottled brown. Both have the striped chests. They are probably only second to the Peregrine Falcon as the top avian predators in the UK. I have witnessed a pair of birds hunting along a hedgerow in tandem, one flushing the birds from one side, for the other to pursue and catch. I have also heard tales of them flying alongside vehicles that are flushing birds from a narrow hedgerow. The presence of a predator at the top of a food chain is nearly always evidence of healthy eco-system beneath to support it. So this is why I welcome this sometimes maligned raptor into my garden, and why I got so excited to see it a few mornings ago.

The whole love and hate relationship we have with the Sparrowhawk is summed up quite neatly by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I will end this blog with his words from his poem on the bird:

“A sparhawk proud did hold in wicked jail
Music's sweet chorister, the Nightingale
To whom with sighs she said: 'O set me free,
And in my song I'll praise no bird but thee.'
The Hawk replied: 'I will not lose my diet
To let a thousand such enjoy their quiet.”

All Images © Anthony Walton