What's that you're eating?

I hope this doesn't put you off your dinner.  I noticed the new sparrowhawk standing sideways on the perch and when I looked closer I could see he was eating.  And closer still, he wasn't eating a bird.  He had caught and killed a bank vole and had brought it up to the perch to eat it.

I have often seen sparrowhawks watching the ground below the feeder and I have sometimes seen them watching a vole, but I have never seen this before.  He had already eaten the head by the time I saw him and he ate most of the vole, just leaving some of the giblets and the skin.  Then he flew a short distance away to clean up before leaving me to clear up the mess on the perch.

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about a sparrowhawk coughing up a pellet that was composed of fur and vole teeth and bones.  Ian Newton, in his book The Sparrowhawk, says that about 3% of a sparrowhawk's diet is comprised of mammals, mainly bank voles but also field voles, young rabbits and a few others.  Zawadka and Zawadki reported about 1% of sparrowhawks' diet being mammals in Poland.  Wikipedia reports sparrowhawks eating bats and mice. Several years ago I did see a female sparrowhawk catch and kill a young rabbit in the garden.


Newton I. The Sparrowhawk. Calton: T&AD Poyser 1986.

Zawadka D, Zawadki J. Breeding  populations and diets of the Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus and the Hobby Falco subbuteo in Wigry National Park (NE Poland). Acta Ornithologica 2001;36(1):25-31.