Leisurely stroll is anything but, amid high-speed chase

REWIND to March 2020, when the world was knocked off its axis by the first Covid lockdown, and I’ve got to admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the world soaring above my head.

I’m talking about the birds. Yes, I could comfortably tell the difference between a blue tit and great tit, goldcrest and goldfinch, but I was never inspired enough to put pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard in this instance.

As our regular readers will know all too well, writing about either dogs or horses is much more in my comfort zone. But with working from home here to stay, I’m really finding my wings when it comes to appreciating the feathered things in life that little bit more. Even when the avian encounter in question is perhaps too close for comfort.

Only the other day, enjoying a lunchtime stroll with the puppy, I was stopped in my tracks as a sudden breeze whooshed just inches from the side of my head. It’s hard to portray a sound in words, but it was exactly that, a fast-moving whoosh!

It all happened so quickly that I struggled to identify exactly what was responsible, but I spun around just in the nick of time to see a blackbird dive into the hedge, being hotly pursued by a similar-sized, maybe slightly larger, hawk. Judging by the fraught nature of it all, I think the one doing the chasing must have been a sparrowhawk, a plucky bird of prey I’ve seen only a handful of times around here.

Able to turn on a sixpence, the rapid hunt saw predator and prey criss-cross in and out of the hedge a couple more times, before the pair shot straight up into the air and arced out of sight. Once they had gone, the commotion continued as birds of all shapes and sizes sounded their warning calls. Hopefully the blackbird made it home safe - albeit a tad shaken up.