Hi everyone, sadly I found a dead bird of prey in my garden, I googled british birds of prey and as far as I can see I think it was a young male sparrowhawk. It was such a beautiful looking bird. My question is, what would the likely cause of death be? Outwardly it looks like it was in perfect health! Any advice welcome.
there no punctuer wounds in it, not been shot
Hey farmer, farmer, put away the D.D.T now. Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please!
Hi,
young birds have a high mortality rate in their first year. It might have been sick, starved to death in the hard weather or possibly hit a window or car and broken it's neck :( I found a dead female sparrowhawk years ago that had hit a tree chasing prey and broken it's neck.
S
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from what I have read in various places, it is quite common for Sparrowhawks to die by flying into windows chasing prey.
I saw a photo on Flickr once of a male Sparrowhawk who'd had flown into someone's window after their canary.
There could be any number of reasons behind it's death, window strike, starvation, accident while hunting, cold, attack by another bird or animal...
There are a lot of risks out there!
Millie & Fly the Border Collies
Hi
If you haven't already disposed of it (and I've spotted this rather late), the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme: http://pbms.ceh.ac.uk/ will take it off your hands. Then the bird's death won't have been in vain.
As Seymour mentioned, sparrowhawks have a tough time surviving their youth. Only 34% survive their first year of life.
Katie
I have already disposed of it unfortunately! Thanks for the answers everyone, I wasn't aware that young birds of prey had such difficulty surviving, that's very sad! Like I said however, this poor bird did look in extremely good condition which was why I was so confused, I suppose the most likely explanation is a collision with something. I'm going to choose Katie's answer so if anyone else is browsing the forum in the same situation they can consider contributing to the monitoring scheme.