We have between 20 and 50 birds coming to our various feeders every day- fantastic to watch, but this number has attracted a sparrow hawk, who now comes every day to grab its own meal. This has included chaffinches, gold finches, three kinds of tit, doves.... Infact, basically anything except the wood pigeons I would be happy for it to kill and drag off. We have now moved the feeders to different parts of the garden, under trees, etc. The sparrowhawk now just makes a circuit of each area, flying right into the bushes and branches to grab its prey. Please can anyone advise what we should do?
Gardener said: We have between 20 and 50 birds coming to our various feeders every day- fantastic to watch, but this number has attracted a sparrow hawk, who now comes every day to grab its own meal. This has included chaffinches, gold finches, three kinds of tit, doves.... Infact, basically anything except the wood pigeons I would be happy for it to kill and drag off. We have now moved the feeders to different parts of the garden, under trees, etc. The sparrowhawk now just makes a circuit of each area, flying right into the bushes and branches to grab its prey. Please can anyone advise what we should do?
I know exactly how you feel, gardener! I had a male Sparrowhawk appear for the first time in my garden yesterday (well, the first time I have seen him, anyway!) and it gave me the fright of my life because instead of appreciating what a wonderful BOP he is, my first thought went out to the little fellows I feed on a daily basis.
With that in mind, I've moved my feeding station and put it right in a big bush, which is next to a tree. I have had to do some pruning in order for it to fit but have left plenty of shelter should he come back. As much as I appreciate the Sparrowhawk has to eat, I would prefer it if he didn't do it in my garden (we live in a heavily wooded area so he has plenty of other places to hunt! lol). Good luck with your Sparrowhawk, there seem to be an awful lot of sightings on here just lately.
My name is VeggieBirdLover and I am a bird feeding addict :D
Hi Gardener .Unfortunately I have become an expert on sparrowhawks ! Like you I have had a terrible time with them targeting my garden birds .I keep my main nut feeders in a netted hedge of 3 inch sq nylon .This has been a great help .Also Ive a Garden eye balloon but that doesn't seem to deter the hawks too much .I think tall bamboo sticks in the flight path of a potential attack are a great help to the targeted birds .I hope this helps .The less sparrow hawks the better from my point of view .Although cats are probably a much worse predator .
I had same ‘problem’ or ‘experience’ and have fitted the attached which stops the sparrowhawk taking feeding birds. In flight they are fair game but I felt I was creating a feeding station for the sparrowhawk with 3 known kills in the time I was watching.
Regards,
Ian.
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Realistically, hawks catch the birds while they aren't behind the wire/mesh (as referred to by 'Feed the birds'). I personally wouldn't want to be viewing wire, but I can see why others wouldn't want to be seeing hawks catching blue tits.