Hi,
Interesting day in bird-attacks-bird-land. Not only did I catch starlings about to formation fly around some raptor or another, some raptor or another earlier gave a big black bird a right seeing to. Question is, is it a peregrine seeing off a crow, or a kestrel seeing off a raven? Or any combination thereof. In proportion to the kestrel/peregrine, the big black bird looks *big*. The peregrine had been up just before this (too far away to photograph well tho, damn these birds) so it could be the peregrine, but the tail looks long like a kestrel.
And I'm sure the big black bird is upside down in the first photo.
Cheers
Steve
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_dewey/sets/72157623533703702/ (there's birds there - and some are actually sharp!)
I wondered if it was an accipiter- maybe a female sparrowhawk and a raven
S
For advice about Birding, Identification,field guides, binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc - put 'Birding Tips' into the search box
I agree with S .. Steve
Looks like a Sparrowhawk and a Raven.
When I was on Oronsay I watched the Ravens fly upside down a lot ! .. Looked like they were doing that just for the fun of it .. Here it looks ready to do a bit or aerial Kung Fu on the hawk lol
Again great shots mate well done.
AL
If its no fun Yer no doin it right!
Cheers both,
I thought the big black bird might be a raven, but I was unsure about the other bird. In the first pic in the montage, I couldn't see a moustache, but that might have been a trick of the light. I like the idea of a sparrowhawk beating up a raven and then being mobbed later by bunch of titchy starlings (although they came mob-handed!).
I've seen a few instances of territoriality up around where the peregrine lives. A couple of weeks ago a couple of raptors hounded a buzzard. Yesterday the peregrine flew over and hounded a buzzard. I also managed, a few weeks ago, to photograph - fuzzily, unfortunately - another raptor giving a buzzard a going over. Who'd be a buzzard?
Mind you, now I look at it again, with that tail and scraggy wings, perhaps it was magpie ;)