Wednesday 21 March 2018

Looking for lunch

Ian Newton, author of The Sparrowhawk (1986), describes seven ways in which sparrowhawks hunt their prey.  They are: short-stay perch hunting; high soaring and stooping; contour hugging in flight; stalking; low quartering; hunting by sound; and hunting on foot.  My sparrowhawk uses an eighth technique, namely long-stay perch hunting!  Sometimes he spends nearly all day on the perch by the feeder in the kitchen garden.  When he does that, over the next couple of days there are very few birds on the feeder as they have been completely spooked, so I then don't see him until numbers have built up again.  Here he is scanning the birds approaching the feeder, looking for a victim.



Although he can't see me or the camera, he does seem to look towards the camera more often than just by chance. Perhaps he does know I am there after all.

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