Sparrowhawk Kill

I have sometimes joked that “no animals were harmed in the making of this post” that is not the case this time.

This post is about a predator that lives in the wild and an animal gets hurt, well killed. I don’t begrudge the Sparrowhawk it’s meal but still I find it difficult to watch my birds being taken. If you do not want to see these things leave now. Visit some of my other pages on the “Recent Posts” tag I am usually quite nice.

This is a Sparrowhawk. It is a juvenile male that visited the garden back in March. It didn’t make a kill then and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts it left and I didn’t see it again until two days ago.

The next part of this post concerns today’s kill.

If it was just a matter of one bird I wouldn’t be too concerned but I am pretty sure that this bird has been hunting successfully here for at least the last couple of days. It is not always easy to see. On one occasion after the first kill I saw it swoop through the garden and try to take a bird in mid flight, it was only here for a second.

I like predators they are exciting, just not especially when it is my birds. They have a right to live and are an important part of the ecosystem. I could have tried to stop this kill from happening although the bird would probably just have flown off with his prey but I would not do that.

So this is what happened (With graphic photographs!)

The Sparrowhawk swooped into the garden and landed on top of the bird feeder, the little birds all ran for it. There must have been twenty of them in that Honeysuckle bush beside the feeder.

The hawk went in to the bush , you can just see him in this photo and he just grabbed one. A little Sparrow. Hiding in the bush was a rubbish idea.

Then he brought it out.

A Sparrowhawk doesn’t kill his prey any more than a Blackbird would kill a worm. If it had been a larger bird that he could not carry away he would have plucked it and eaten it alive right here.

Sparrowhawks are not cruel. Nature has no empathy between species. As far as the Hawk is concerned dinner wriggles and squeaks while it is being ate. That is just what food does. He doesn’t have any choice in the matter he has to eat to survive.

With a small bird like this his talons would pierce vital organs and the bird would die.

I won’t show you too much. After a brief struggle the Hawk took off with what looked like a dead Sparrow in it’s talons.

It would be nice if he just went away but I don’t think that he will, why should he?

Well the songbirds are still in the garden and just as busy as ever. I have some more, much nicer pictures to show you later. I just have to pop up and feed my Fox and Badgers first.