Male Sparrowhawk

 This morning, we were having breakfast when I spotted this bird of prey on our fence.



I wasn't 100% sure what it was, so we had a look and found out it was a male sparrowhawk. Apologies for the picture, it was taken from a distance inside and through the window. We've never seen it in our garden so we think it was looking for food.

Sparrowhawk

Sparrowhawks live in woods, gardens and valleys, if you see one in your garden it means you have a healthy garden because there are lots of birds for the sparrowhawk to eat. Sparrowhawks eat birds such as sparrows, chaffinches, starlings and thrushes. They will also take voles, mice and rabbits and if they cant find anything like this they will eat insects like beetles. They don't just go round killing everything though, they only kill what they need. Sometimes there meals are days apart. Adult sparrowhawks kill about 30kg of prey each year. I know this is a male because there plumages differs to the female. A female has a browner back with a grey front, where as the male has a grey back and a rust red front. The young are even browner than the female. The females are bigger than the males measuring about 35cm and the males measure 29cm. 

It was exciting to see him this morning but I don't want him to eat all the garden birds.

Comments

  1. Nanny11 October 2020 at 22:23

    What a lovely surprise for breakfast and wonderful photos, especially as you probably had to find the camera quickly. You really are doing so well with this blog and it is obviously helping you find and photograph all the interesting wildlife that surrounds us. Keep going

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waxwings

Image
Recently there have been waxwings in our local Aldi car park and I wanted to see them for myself to get a good photo. Waxwings are birds that winter in this country and travel here from Scandinavia. According to the Wildlife Trust, sometimes only 100 or so Waxwings come to the UK, but other years they come in their thousands and this is known as an irruption. I would would say this year must be an irruption year as they seem to have be spotted all over the country. Rowan berries are their favourite food, so supermarket car parks are always a good place to spot them (Not were I usually go to do my birdwatching!). These are the first ever Waxwings I have seen and it was an unforgettable experience. We arrived at the Aldi car park at about 8am (ish), just as we arrived, we saw someone driving off and thought maybe we were just out of luck and the Waxwings had moved on. At first we didn't see anything except a bush with quite a few berries, but a few moments later a flock of about 20 b
Read more

Spurn Bird Observatory Migfest 2023

Image
 Last weekend we went to Spurn to attend Migfest for the 2nd year in a row. I was full of excitement and couldn't wait to see what we could find! It was a long 4 hour drive from school to Welwick but it was worth it. The air bnb was nice and had a hot tub, which was a bonus!  One of the things we did was go on a Unimog trip to The Point at Spurn. That trip held loads of amazing species like Merlins, Reed Bunting and Pied Wagtails. Also we briefly saw a Roe Deer! On the Sunday morning, I attended 2 Young Birder Activities, which were bird ringing and a youth walk. At the bird ringing, we got lucky! We ringed a Pied Flycatcher (my first ever one to see!), Goldcrest, Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Meadow Pipit. What a lovely variety! On the walk we were lucky enough to see a lot of nice species, including Water Rail, Golden Plover, Spoonbill, Little Grebe and Marsh Harrier. It was nice to go for a walk with other keen young birders. I also got a Rare Bird Alert account for free as I was
Read more

BTO Bird Camp Wales 2023 Part 1

 Recently I attended the 2023 BTO Bird Camp for Wales for the 2nd year in a row. A lot of the friends I met last year like Deri, Tyler, Gabe, Finn and more were there but there were also some new faces. We arrived at the same bunkhouse as last year and waited for everyone to arrive. After that we set up our rooms. I was sharing with Deri, Tyler and Finn. After setting up we headed to the yard and played a game to learn each others names. We had to throw a ball to someone and say their name. I think I was better at throwing than remembering everyone's names! For dinner we had a very nice chilli made by the BTO volunteers with guacamole and nachos. We then set some camp rules that everyone agreed on and signed it. That stayed on the wall for the rest of bird camp. Next up was the evening activity, Bat walk. Bob and Annie, the experts who were there last year did it with us and also another man (I told you I'm hopeless at names!), who was a bat expert, came along just for this act
Read more