Have you ever seen a Sparrowhawk take a Wood Pigeon from your garden?

Hi

male Sprawks take Collared doves around my feeders :

S

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Hi.

No i have not seen it take a wood pigeon but I did witness one take a goldfinch from my feeder this week.

Magnificent birds but not what I want to happen.

Here he is looking Magnificent (sorry such rubbish picture)

Kath x

Not from a feeder, Cunir, but I did once watch one take down a Wood Pigeon (on fairly open grass) following a full-length-of-the-street chase (suburban Liverpool, UK).

I don't know if we disturbed it or if it had just bitten off more than it could chew, but it then left without its prey.

Wood Pigeon made off, minus some feathers.

Dave 

I've not seen one take a wood pigeon from a feeder or in flight, but I have seen the evidence of wood pigeons being taken, both close to and away from the feeders.

Mike

Flickr Peak Rambler

Yep had at least 2 wood pigeons that I saw taken from feeders and that was in a fairly built up neighbourhood. i think sparrowhawks travel a fair old distance if they have to but rarely linger long so seeing them is a matter of minutes at most. Let's hope it was the hawk taking them!

I know it’s a shame for the other bird but I’d quite like to see him swooping in just once. So far all I’ve seen him doing is sitting on the perch. It’s a bit like having a parrot and not hearing him talk

They are so fast Cunir so unless you stand watching all day..blink and you could miss it! I had a male sprawk in garden yesterday drinking from the fountain..then sat on the feeder pole for a second then flew off...he often flies in and out the garden trying to catch a meal but more often than not he's unsuccessful!

(Pardon the Scottish Accent)

Ditto Linda. The best method is to sit in the garden non-stop for, say, three years or so.

You could be sponsored maybe?

We had a female and a male over the garden yesterday, but high up.

If your Sparrowhawk becomes semi-resident, Cunir, then you might get a ringside seat. An acquaintance in the UK once had one that spent most of the winter in his garden. It would raid the feeding table by flying through some garden trellis, put up to train roses on. Flying through it rather than over it must have given the bird that extra, perhaps, third of a second. And it did so daily, several times each day.

On a bigger predator, an acquaintance here heard a din coming from his chicken coop last week. He had a look at the coop; nothing strange. So he went back to what he was doing.

The din mounted again, and this time he opened the door to the open, protected area, and stepped into the little shed where the chickens spend the night. The door was ajar as the weather was iffy.

Sitting on a perch, plucking a dead chicken, was a Goshawk. The bird left almost immediately. Through a pane of (thankfully) extremely thin glass.

Dave

In reply to Dave - CH:

The Gos left but with or without the dead chicken?! Also, I wonder if the Gos had killed more than one chicken before settling down to pluck one of them.
I know a couple who lived in Alaska for some years. They were in the south, not the even more extreme arctic circle in the north of Alaska, but they still needed to plug their car into the electricity overnight in the winter in order to keep the engine from freezing. Things there have warmed up a bit since the 1970s, climate change as you know. She fed the birds in the back garden in the winter (couldn't in the summer or there would be a risk of bears, including Grizzlies, dropping in and tearing down the bird feeders to raid the contents, and of course the bears hibernate over the winter). By mid-winter they had about 40 Mallards dining in their back garden once or twice every day, tidying up under the bird feeders and making tracks through the deep snow on the lawn. One year they had visits from a male Goshawk who had Mallard for lunch for a couple of days. After the second visit, she caved in and opted to save the remaining Mallards by chasing off the Gos. That surprised me because I thought she would have relished seeing the Goshawk regularly and they are far rarer than Mallards, even if most bird species are declining in numbers, Mallards as well I read recently. I would have done the opposite, even if the Gos eventually eliminated the entire Mallard flock! What a sight to see such a supreme predator (unless it is eating your chickens!)!
At least she took photos.

Kind regards, Ann