I had been watching the sparrowhawk for a while and he hadn't been doing much. I decided to record a short video of him scanning the birds coming in towards the feeder. While I was doing so he suddenly locked onto a target and took off to strike. Here is the video.
He killed a great tit and at first took it under the gooseberry bush out of my view. Magpies don't miss much and one saw what had happened and flew down to harass the sparrowhawk who was hopping around with the kill in one foot. He was spared the trouble when the magpie saw me and flew off. (It is interesting that the sparrowhawk either doesn't see me or doesn't take any notice - I was 2m away at the window.)
By the time I was able to get a good view with the camera he had eaten the head.
He then hopped up onto the wood at the edge of the raised bed to get a firmer grip.
On this first video clip he has eaten the head.
Then he plucks the body but keeps getting feathers up his nose.
On this clip you can see he swallows a whole leg and foot.
Then he finishes the last morsels and cleans the blood and feathers off his feet and beak.
Catching, plucking and eating the great tit took him half an hour. Then he sat and preened his feathers for a while but he was soon looking hungry again.
No comments:
Post a Comment