Sparrowhawk news

After almost a week of the lockdown here is a report from the garden.  Since my last post a few weeks ago I have seen much more of the adult sparrowhawk than the juvenile.  Over the past couple of weeks he has mainly been here in the afternoon.  I suspect this is because he is catching extra food for his mate to get her into top breeding condition, rather than because he can't get enough to eat.  (The female has to get to a weight over 320g, twice the male's weight, otherwise she won't be fit enough to lay eggs.)  

On one afternoon he made and ate two kills within 30 minutes and then was so full he just sat under the gooseberries for an hour, almost as if he was too heavy to fly off.

The next morning he had a blue tit for breakfast.

An hour later he was eating a robin.  He likes to stand on the edge of the raised bed as he can get a better grip on his prey.

A couple of days ago he caught me by surprise and I twice spooked him, not realising he was in the garden.  Yet twenty minutes later he was eating what I think was a great tit.  He is fastidious in cleaning his talons and his beak when he has finished.

In this photo he was sitting only about 1m from the window.  It is a poor photo taken in deep shade but I like it because you can see the reflection of the window in his eye, even if you can't quite see me.

I have been recording a few videos with the window open, so there is an audio track.  There is a lot of background noise from the traffic but you can also hear the alarms from the small birds in the gooseberry bushes.  Don't worry, there are no videos of him feeding.  In this one he is on high alert and is hungry.

In this clip he is happy to sit and preen after eating.

This video shows how the camera copes with changing light.  To start with the perch was in shade with a brightly lit background.  Then the sun went behind a cloud (or, more accurately, a cloud passed in front of the sun) and the camera automatically adjusted the exposure so the sparrowhawk appears brighter.  Then the sun reappeared and the settings were reversed.

Here he launches three attacks.  You can see how quickly his attention switches from preening to hunting.  He didn't return to the perch immediately after any of these attacks but I didn't see whether they were successful.

Sometimes he gets a bit bored with the kitchen garden and flies over the hedge to try his luck on the feeders outside the kitchen window.

Here is a short video close-up recorded in landscape format.

The portraits work best in portrait format so here are a few from recent days.

In previous years the sparrowhawks have stopped visiting the garden around the beginning of April so he may not be around for much longer.  If he does go I shall miss having him here but at least I shall be able to get on with some work in the kitchen garden.