Well I wasn't going to go birding this weekend a foul weather forecast (I'm pretty much a fair weather birder😀) and a Christmas Pudding to make meant a relaxing weekend watching footy and chilling, however our wildlife garden had other ideas, we have a healthy population of House Sparrows visiting our feeders and in turn they attract attention from a Sparrowhawk it has visited on a couple of occasions previously but I've never seen it catch anything, I didn't see it catch this time either a casual glance out of the window and there it was a large juvenile tucking into brunch!! Usually when it attacks there is chaos among the Sparrows ,as I didn't hear this I wonder if it caught elsewhere and brought it's prey into the quiet of our garden to eat it. A quick set up of the camera a couple of record shots through the window then a very slow inch by inch opening of the door, slowly, slowly so as not to spook it, needn't of worried it was quite happy pulling apart it's dinner ,even when the next door neighbour came out into the garden it didn't move!! At time of writing the bird is still here digesting it's meal on the floor whilst being eyed up by a nervous woodpigeon two and a half hours and counting !! Bit annoying as I want to pop out and see what species the prey is lots of grey feathers so possibly a Dunnock !! Margie's just happy it's not our resident Robin!!😲
Nice to think birds like this can survive in our towns and cities, suggest a healthy population of prey species in Hurstpierpoint, certainly the Sparrow and Starling population around our area is very healthy.
A few pics of the beast below, not as gory as it could of been!!
No comments:
Post a Comment