Sparrowhawk news

The new sparrowhawk is behaving a bit differently from previous birds although it is early in the winter season.  He is in the garden regularly but mostly hunts in front of the kitchen window.  He rarely sits on the "sparrowhawk" perch in the vegetable garden - when he does sit in ambush he prefers to be under the blackcurrant bush in a more sheltered position.  This is a bit of a nuisance as it makes it hard to take photos and hard to check whether he is there before I go out.  To start with he was sitting on a pile of plant pots and cloche frames.  I can only just see this from the window and the very oblique shot through the double glazing makes for a very blurry picture.

So I tidied it up a bit and put in a more photogenic perch for him.  He does use it but it still isn't very easy to see from the window.

He also retreats right under the blackcurrant, either to eat a kill or just to rest when he isn't hungry.  One afternoon recently he was under there for five hours!

To get a better view I put in a couple of trail cameras to keep an eye on him.

If he makes a kill outside the kitchen he takes it off into the wood to eat to avoid being bothered by magpies that try to steal it from him.  If he is in the vegetable garden he is sometimes spotted by the magpies which don't approve of him and harass him.

I did see the sparrowhawk on the perch recently but he was hungry and only stayed a moment.  

The next day, after another unsuccessful strike, he was on top of the feeder, almost too close for the camera.

Comparing the photos above and in my previous post shows how the tail feathers are re-growing  after moulting. These images are from 24/08, 19/09 and 04/10.  He has smartened up a lot as well.