Sparrowhawk

I had a family of blackbirds in the garden. The chicks fledged the nest about 10 days ago. A visiting male sparrow hawk first killed the mother and now all the chicks. The male, who fought valiantly for his family attacked the sparrowhawk but to no avail. Will he still remain in my garden please? Is there any point at all in feeding and encouraging birds to your garden when there are such voracious predators nesting nearby?

  • Well the very fact you feed the birds lets Sparrowhawks know there will be an easy meal to be had...the Sparrowhawks need to eat aswell am afraid
    Circle of life and all that as sad as it is :-(

    (Pardon the Scottish Accent)

  • A Magpie raided one of our Blackbird nests a few days ago, I caught it on video, thankfully it appears that there were no eggs or chicks (as yet) or they'd already been taken ... fingers crossed they'll find a safer location to nest. The adjacent Wren's nest has also all gone quiet. We have visiting Sparrowhawks, I've video of one sitting on our Bird Feeder. The dawn chorus is undeminished, we have 3/10 nestboxes with sitting Great Tits and Blue Tits. Our local birds queue up in the morning awaiting the top up of the feeders. So much point to feeding them.