• Cunir
  • 3 Nov 2021 7:27 PM
  • Replies 40 replies
  • Subscribers 26 subscribers
  • Views 7581 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Latest posts

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

  • Dave - CH
    Indeed Ann, but getting the chicken out through the window was, apparently, too much for it.
    One kill only, or so I heard. Hard to say whether the bird killed was perching (inside) or was actually taken inside to pluck.
    To be honest, my thoughts were with the Goshawk. I'd have gone straight to the floor and given it a chance to leave through the door, but our buddy had his mind on the photo opportunity it seems.

    Hmmm... (great story by the way)... I'd have done the same as your friends. I'm almost always impressed to see a predator at work, but I couldn't be complicit in the ducks meeting their maker.

    Dave
  • Kath10
    So this happened on Saturday...

    We have been having a sparrowhawk come in our street about once a week at the moment. I have put a photo on this thread of him, rubbish photo but best I could at the time.

    I came home on Saturday and looked across the road and sat on my neighbours pergola was the sparrowhawk bold as anything waiting for a sparrow to come out of the hedge in my her garden.

    They have nested in her hedge for years and they have feeders hanging down from the pergola so they literally just sit in hedge and pop out for food and back in hedge again. They do pop over to me as well for some food but mostly stay in my neighbours garden living the best life.

    The noise from the hedge was horrendous and they were literally screaming as they knew what was waiting for them outside.. I walked over to her garden to try and detur the sparrowhawk waving my arms and making noises, as much as the sparrowhawk is a magnificent bird and needs to eat I just didn't want to see it or hear it.

    The sparrowhawk came nearer me and just sat on the fence between me and the hedge and just stared at me. He was not bothered by me at all and was looking at me as if to say I'm not moving so don't bother trying to move me!!!

    I was literally a few feet away from him it was crazy how close he let me get to him....

    Of course you know what was coming, I walked back to my house defeated that I couldn't stop him and he sat waiting and then got bored so dived head first into the hedge!!! Sparrows flew out in all directions and he flew after one up the road, he was then hopping around the floor with the sparrow not sure if he did manage to kill it or if it got away.

    Haven't seen any sparrows in my neighbours garden since it is very quiet...
  • Linda257
    Mmm...doesn't sound like typical sprawk behaviour in my opinion ...only thing I can think of is..Was it injured or an escapee from a private owner that's been hand reared and used to humans but am sure someone far more experienced than me may have a better explanation on why it didn't fly away as soon as you approached it.

    (Pardon the Scottish Accent)

  • Dave - CH

    In reply to Linda257:

    Linda257 said:
    doesn't sound like typical sprawk behaviour in my opinion

    Nope. To me neither.

  • Gardenbirder
    I wonder, perhaps Kath's Sprawk may have been human-raised or may have been injured or a bit under the weather for some reason and had been unable to hunt for a while, making it very hungry--too hungry to be worried about Kath standing staring at it (well, at him/her/non-binary/whatever...their choice!). I have heard stories more than once about encounters with a Sprawk when one whizzed past a person standing in their garden, so close as to ruffle their hair, the Sprawk seemingly intensely concentrating and fixed on its potential dinner and not at all bothered by the person who chanced to be in its way. They also do regularly dive into hedges or so I have read but I have yet to see that behaviour.

    As for the Gos at your friend's, Dave, it seems unlikely a wild Gos would carry prey to the inside of a building to pluck it but would only go inside a building to catch prey which it had worked out was in there.

    As for my friend's Gos in Anchorage, I imagine that if she had not intervened, that the remaining flock of Mallards eventually would have dispersed or gone as a flock elsewhere for their dinners and the Gos would have moved on as well. And just speculating you understand, I, too, might have caved in after half a dozen Mallards had met their maker--there's no telling, but I am not completely without heart! In fact, I am far soppier now than I was many decades ago. As a child, some of my best friends were domesticated Mallards, one in particular named Llewellyn by my Mum (but sorry, we are not Welsh--its a long story...) That one was preceded by Fluggy (name due to a typing error in my Mum's letter to her family; she was originally (more accurately, un-originally) named Fluffy by we children but as she grew to a lumbering maturity, Fluggy suited her far better). And we had Chickens, too--all of them taught me a lot about birds.

    Kind regards, Ann

  • Dave - CH

    In reply to Gardenbirder:

    Gardenbirder said:
    I have heard stories more than once about encounters with a Sprawk when one whizzed past a person standing in their garden, so close as to ruffle their hair, the Sprawk seemingly intensely concentrating and fixed on its potential dinner and not at all bothered by the person who chanced to be in its way

    Yup. Had that too and nearly stepped on one in the forest once. But still, it was over in seconds once the bird realized I was there.

    Gardenbirder said:
    it seems unlikely a wild Gos would carry prey to the inside of a building to pluck it but would only go inside a building to catch prey which it had worked out was in there

    Hard to say, Ann. The enclosure's roof was open, but was strung to keep raptors out (obviously they hadn't see Goshawks or Sparrowhawks close up and in action).

    Getting an unplucked chicken up through the strings may have been a big ask, and the hut the safest, quietest place to "cook" once the main ingredient had been procured. 

    I guess we'll never know. Don't know of anyone around here having a tame one though...

  • Linda257

    That's happened to me on 2 occasions recently Ann that a sprawk has whizzed passed me in the garden chasing its dinner so yes that I understand that can happen but to approach one waving arms in the air and making noises to scare it and it moves closer..even my pigeons would are off soon as I step foot within a few metres. But as we both already said could be injured or an escapee that's been acclimatise to humans

    (Pardon the Scottish Accent)

  • DB_Fife
    I have also seen sparrowhawks whizzing past and diving into foliage to catch small birds. The strangest thing was a sparrowhawk hanging upside down from the guardian cage of a bird feeder in the garden. I was horrified because I thought it was caught and couldn't get away. I went over to try and free it (I hadn't really thought about how I was going to do this and didn't even have gloves!). It turned out it had caught a sparrow that was inside the cage and wasn't letting go. As I approached, it yanked the sparrow through the cage and flew away with it. I have now removed the guardian cage to give smaller birds a better chance of getting away.
  • Kath10
    Thanks everyone for all your replies I would never think a bird of prey would let me that near so that does make sense maybe injured etc.

    I have put previous posts up about having a sparrowhawk after my birds in my garden and was told to get more cover for the birds as my garden is too open etc.

    This proves my point that maybe I don't need hedges and trees as a bird of prey will get there breakfast, lunch, tea regardless.

    Thanks everyone...
  • Mike B

    Dave CH, that's a fab story of the goshawk, though it seems a bit of sloppy stockmanship, unless the door was deliberately left ajar because of the weather, for a fox (and there's plenty around, urban and rural) could just as easily have been the predator.

    Mike

    Flickr Peak Rambler