Sparrowhawk Kill

For those who've never seen one, here is a very typical sparrowhawk kill. This is all you get left of a sparrow when our killer-queen female sparrow hawk, regular visitor to the garden, gets lucky and is then left undisturbed while she eats. Here she's pulled down a female sparrow right under the mixed seed feeder in the Paulownia tree.

The main photo shows the small circle of plucked feathers, usually with an empty centre where the hawk was standing to do the job. Then right in the middle of that, a rather pathetic bit of sparrow-beak and fragment of forehead bone / front of skull. That is all that's left. here, I've pulled out the beak bits and put them on a handy leaf to make them easier to see. Usually they're just lost in among the feathers.

Some people hate to think that death stalks the garden, and the poor old sparrows are being murdered in cold blood. We look at it that we're proud to be able to support a top predator, and it's a sign of a very healthy sustained sparrow population in out wildlife garden. We see the sparrowhawk about once a month - she whooshes through at hedge-hopping height, hoping to surprise a sleepy sparrow. She's very manouvre-able but the spugs are fast and usually vigilant.

If she's lucky there's a rush of air and a puff noise as she thumps into the spug feet-first, then a commotion from the other birds in protest (from cover). If not she zooms on through, or alights briefly on a perch in the garden with a "darn-it!" expression on her face, before streaking off again to the next likely bird-garden.

Have a great Hallowe'en

Deefski