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

Pigs' Trotters

Someone at Dad's work swears by giving their dogs raw pigs' trotters in lieu of bones, so spotting some at the "Goods Shed" most excellent farm shop in Canterbury (see also http://www.thegoodsshed.net/ ) Dad bought us one each.

To be honest we were none of us that impressed. I buried mine staright away in the greenhouse (never a good idea as mean old Dad tends to keep watch, suss me, un-bury the stash, and take it off me on the basis that I'll leave it rot a few days and then bring in back indoors all maggotty and skank-some). The H and Meggie gave theirs a brief desultory chew on the cartilege-y end and then abandonned them, so they were also retrieved by Dad.

Being a Dublin city-centre gal, Mum has had them before well boiled down and/or roasted as a gelatinous, soft "delicacy" (in the jellied eels, pie and mash tradition), so she is going to boil them for us and try them again.

My other pics here are just for a bit of fun. We loved the colours on the poppy one and if you look carefully you can just see a bee flying in over the top of the flower. top centre of the picture. The sparrows too, were a bit of fun - just as Dad was about to pull the trigger, a third sparrow tried to fly in and land on their feeder ports, and both these boys look like they're saying "Oy! Find yer own feeder!"

Lovely sunny warm weekend.

Deefski

Back to Normal

After our brief flirtation with Night Shift working, Dad comes back to bed at 06:00 this morning and we hang on in there even with Mum going off to work normally. Where Dad is is where a dog should be, even if it's rather sleepy "action".

At just gone midday something wakes us all up - dogs leap into action and accelerate away across the bed..... as it happens, right across Dad's "moobs". Arghhhh!!! A rude awakening or what? Never mind, we are soon forgiven, and we have the rest of the day with Dad awake and around. There's something to be said for these night hours.

The garden is now choc-a-block with baby birds doing "flying school". The fences are peopled by rows of baby brown starlings sitting next to a Mum or a Dad and screeching at him/her to get fed, and next to these are similar families of sparrows, the babies sit crouched with trembling wings. Blackbirds all up and down the street are "Chuck- Chuck" ing in alarm at some threat. Sad to say, at least we know it's not "our cats" this year.

Have a good one

Deefer