Those of you who follow us on twitter or facebook will have seen a number of posts about our local sparrowhawks.
To summarise:
Back in May we saw a pile of sticks in our oak tree and noticed a sparrowhawk sitting around and carrying twigs to (what we assumed was) its nest. We’ve seen sparrowhaks around a few times over the years but never had them nest in the garden. However, we must have disturbed them and they decided that our garden was not appropriate for a nest.
Nonetheless they stayed around and we soon got used to their screaming cries.
As the years gone on, we saw them regularly and heard them even more frequently.
Then in July we noticed a change in behaviour, not only did we see three of them, but two were chasing the magpies and crows in the garden, dive-bombing them (and then getting chased in return). We assumed that this was parents teaching a youngster how to catch birds.
Whether it was related or not there has been a shortage of small birds in the garden this year, no bluetits and only a few robins (although again they’ve been calling to each other).
The woodpigeons also seem to have had a bad year with more than one killing itself by flying into the windows and (as you can see) a pile of feathers in the garden where a pigeon has met its end (but that could equally well be the fox).
Anyway, earlier this week, it seems that the magpies have finally had enough and we saw a sparrowhawk being mobbed by half a dozen or so magpies and being driven away (admittedly that was followed by a sparrowhawk swooping down and a fight, just out of sight over the fence).
They’re still about but we’ll be interested to know if they are spreading out and whether they’ll be back next year.
