Sighting of hawk brings drama at the kitchen sink
‘SEEING THE BIRD ON OUR BACK WALL WAS REALLY SPECIAL’
WASHING the dishes had an added bonus this week with the regular appearance of a sparrowhawk on the garden wall.
It’s a small garden, surrounded by stone walls with a long alley along the back. Sparrows and starlings regularly visit our bird table, so it’s perfect hunting territory for one of our smallest birds of prey.
The brilliant thing about a sparrowhawk sitting on the garden wall is you can study what an absolutely lovely bird it is. It is between a blackbird and a collared dove in size. The male has a blue-grey back with a white chest, with orange bars crossing in a mottled design. Females are larger with more brown in the plumage. In flight they have rounded wings and a long, narrow tail.
This was a male. It did look small and almost vulnerable with its red cheeks making it seem a little shy and retiring. It looked like a sensitive creature, it’s a bird after all, but that was hiding the fact it was, basically, waiting to hunt down its prey. It had the perfect spot behind our tree, so any unsuspecting finches, tits or sparrows would be fair game. You might think smaller birds would have an advantage in a small, enclosed area, but the sparrowhawk’s agility makes it one of the best-equipped hunters in the UK wild.
The sparrowhawk will ambush its prey from a perch – or wall – flying low and changing direction with highly-skilled manoeuvres.
A TV naturalist told us you can hear a sparrowhawk coming by the reaction of other birds. Those alarm calls form a path as the bird makes its way through woodland. The sad thing is numbers of this bird in the UK fell because of the use of pesticides after the Second World War. There was an encouraging increase in the 30 years after the 70s, but recently numbers have gone down again. It is estimated we have 1,800 sparrowhawks in the region.
Obviously, this means seeing one on our back wall is really special and I welcome this wonderful predator coming to hunt in the alleyway behind our row of cottages.
It sat there for a couple of minutes before flying off, returning half an hour later. Over the next couple of days there is bound to be a tell-tale pile of feathers in the alley where some small bird has failed to escape the predator’s claws. This is nature, life and death, happening in a small Lancashire backyard. Imagine the day-to-day dramas in our wider region and marvel at the sheer excitement of the wildlife we see every day.
The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is dedicated to protecting and promoting wildlife. To become a member go to www.lancswt.org.uk