Hung out to dry

Once in a while, I bring you a blog that is little more than a set of photos, because nature sometimes speaks for itself.

Today's is of a Sparrowhawk. He had just finished bathing in my pond, which is thrilling enough in itself, but on this occasion he decided to come and sit in a myrtle tree outside my bedroom window. (I originally thought it was a female based on the brown colouring, but have since discovered it is a second-year male. You'd never be able to work that out from most field guides!)

And there he felt so comfortable that he decided to dry himself in the weak, late-autumn sunshine. Never before have I had the chance to see all the barring in the tail feathers so clearly...

...or indeed in the primaries, those largest wing feathers on the left.

But look how much more prominent that barring is from below, and how he has a rufous patch on her flanks almost like a Redwing. Look, too, at those long, pure white feathers under his tail, albeit still a bit bedraggled at this point. Come the spring, these white feathers will be put to good use, when he will circle high in the sky above her territory, those feathers flared like a powder puff. Females do it even more than the males, signalling to other Sparrowhawks that the ground below is her territory.

And, dried off, he gave me a withering look, and was gone...