Sparrowhawk in my Garden

Hello.

Great pictures and the feather remains certainly put me in mind of a collared dove or woodpigeon.  Sparrowhawks are fantastic birds to see.  I had one ( a male) make a couple of visits a year or two ago, although I never saw him hunt or eat.

Paul

Hi,

Great pictures. I do hope it wasn't a collared dove because, as you say, they mate for life and always go out together. It would be such a shame.

Hi Blackbird - great shots especially if your're experiencing the weather most of us are having - the windows need windscreen wipers!   Our local Sparrowhawks killed every day throughout the summer - mainly Blackbirds and its very hard to accustom oneself to it - nature in the raw!  They are hunting further away from the garden at the moment so we are having a short respite.

I think having a dog can be useful with sparrowhawks. I have seen them swoop in and out of the garden several times this summer, mostly unsuccessfully and only once have I seen one taking a bird from the leylandii hedge. I doubt they would linger on the ground to eat a kill with Lola around!

Thank you for your replies everyone.  I found it hard to think it only took 5 minutes to eat a living bird - a quick strip of the feathers and that was the end.

Sparrow: Good news that it is not the Collared Doves, two of them have come down as usual.   So it must be the Wood Pigeon or the Stock dove we have.  The feather colours match up.

Heron: This is the first time we have seen a Spawk eat any bird.  We have only seen a Spawk hunt with no success in our last garden.

Mr Blackbird came up to the feeders and he stood for a few minutes, and had a good look at the feathers.  He had a sniff about, then he went into one of the ground feeders to eat his fill and flew off.

The Collared Doves seems to do the same - very cautious.   The birds must sense that something has occured and they need to be on the lookout for any danger.

Must be a scary world for a bird.  I am sure that the Mrs Spawk will be back!

Regards

Kathy and Dave

Wow! What a great sight and pics Blackbird!! Good for you and thanks for sharing!

Without wishing to put the, er, cat among the pigeons (sorry), I reckon the sparrowhawk's meal was something else.

If you look at the fifth photo down, at the bottom towards the left hand corner, you can see there are some brownish feathers that don't suit a woodpigeon, collared dove or stock dove.

If the sparrowhawk had killed a pigeon, it would've had a hard job to polish it all off within five minutes. I reckon you'd also have had a lot more feathers lying around. It's hard to tell from the photos (with nothing to compare to for scale), but the feathers look fairly small to me.

My guess is that it was a house sparrow or perhaps a dunnock.

Only about 1 in 10 sparrowhawk hunts end successfully (for the hawk, that is). Catching birds is a difficult business, and about 60 per cent of young sparrowhawks don't survive their first year. Winter's an especially tough time for them. But yours looks like an adult female, so obviously she knows her stuff.

Katie

I'm relieved it wasn't the collared dove. Thanks for letting me know that, Blackbird

hi Katie

Thank you for you for your informative answer.

Yes, the feathers are quite smallish, and there are a lot of downy feathers.

The brownish colouration is there, so I think what you have said is right.  We have a good sized group if House Sparrows here at the moment.  They go from the hedge in front of the house to the back a few times a day.  A couple of Dunnocks remain close to the feeders, hiding in the hedge in next doors back garden

I thought of Mrs Blackbird to as she has not been around  all day.

There again I feel the feathers go smaller than a Blackbird also.

Just not seen a pile of feathers like that before.

Will try to get another shot to compare measurement of feather sizes tomorrow {smile}

We live and learn.

Regards

Kathy and Dave