Sunday Breakfast

Ironically, I just took some breakfast packaging out to the recycle bin this morning when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brief movement, heard a clatter in the bushes and saw feathers rise to the air.

Looking across, I could see a mass of white feathers, and a very dead bird.  Initial first split second thought was a cat, but following a clear channel of a flight path, a Sparrowhawk flashed into view and turned quickly away from me.

Closer inspection revealed it to be a Collared Dove, stripped of feathers on the breast and with all of the breast meat eaten.  Plenty of undigested seeds evidence it's diet.

This is the second Collared Dove that has fallen to Sparrowhawk in the last six weeks in my garden

Martin

Sparrowhawk Attack

Since I bought you pictures of the juvenile female Sparrowhawk, and the mature male, I have been seeing them more and more around the patch.

I was outside on Wednesday night, working in the garden when I saw the rapidly moving shape of the male, dive through a small gap of about 2' diameter between my side gate and some shrubs, across the top of my neighbours shed, less than a foot above that, through a small gap and out of my sight.  Almost immediately, I hear what can only be described as the death squeals of a bird.

Getting up to get a look at what is going on, the commotion continues, and then another grey flash as the Sparrowhawk flies anyway, and a lucky male Blackbird lives another day and flies off in a different direction.

It was dramatic, it was lightning fast, and very close to where I was sitting.

Just for good measure, here is a repeat image of the bird in earlier times, assuming it was the same Male.

Martin

Another new garden visitor

Just for our 'friends' at Photogrind, this post has been stolen from http://wildlifeacrossthewater.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-new-garden-visitor.html without our permission, so pop across to our blog and see the real thing.

Anyway, regular readers, after I shared the juvenile female Sparrowhawk image here with you a couple of weeks back, I chopped down all the offending clutter on the plum tree, most of which is now dead in case she came back.

Well I haven't seen her since, but the male came in.

Clearly a mature bird from the colour of the eyes. In  Accipiters,  Sparrowhawks or Goshawks, the eye colouring can be a clue to the age of the bird.  The younger they are the more yellow they are and the older the bird the deeper orange they are.  I have never seen this written down in a book but was reliably informed by a falconer of this some years back

Anyway, here are a few images for you to enjoy.  Sadly, I could do with the leylandii hedge moving back about fifteen feet, but I am stuck with what I have.

 

As you will see the colours are completely different on the back and also with the chestnut flank, and if you followed my thread on megapixels and cropping, I could also easily tell he is also much smaller


Original content can be seen at  http://wildlifeacrossthewater.blogspot.com
 
Martin

Garden Update - Female Sparrowhawk

As promised earlier today, here is just one of the female Sparrowhawk pictures that I got in my garden last week.

 

This was taken with the 7D and if you read this post I did last week, in particular the second link,  I can tell you how relevant this thinking is for this image.

I took some images with the 1Dmk111, 500 + the 1.4 extender, but to get an equivalent crop to this size, I was down to something like 4.1MP.  Now that is fine for the blog, as I only tend to post at something like 800 x 600 max. (click image for full size viewing).  However, with the 7D file sizes, the equivalent crop was 11.6 MP or thereabouts.  So as you can see still more MP's left than I started with on the 1Dmk111.  So very printable in terms of file size.

I will do a follow up post with some more detail and images around this cropping subject later in the week, with full and cropped examples from both bodies, along with some more behavioural shots of this bird.

Sadly, the plum tree that it was sat in is far from photogenic with the 'clutter' behind the bird.  I got the ladders and the cutters out today, so if she should make a return, then I can now get a much cleaner shot.

Martin

Local Patch - Warwickshire

It is cold, grey and the wind is biting as I type this on Sunday morning, although the Sparrowhawk that has gone flashing across the back of the garden seemed quite oblivious to it. A couple of new visitors of note in the last two weeks have been a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers coming in, ignoring the many options of feed and pecking away on the dead branch on the apple tree.

I spent a couple of hours out in the garden yesterday putting in hedging. This is the time of year to put in bare root hedge stock while the growth is dormant. I have put in a total of 80 plants, all of mixed native UK species with berry, flower and fruit variety for wildlife from nine different species. It will be exciting to watch them grow this year and put some cover against a very boring wooden fence that one of our neighbours has put up.

Since I last wrote, we have generally had more of the same species in, with the blackbirds and sparrows being the dominant species in terms of numbers. Our Grey Wagtail didn't show for a few days, so we always get a little nervous in case it has been 'catted', but it put in an appearrance again on Friday and Saturday. I still need to get some better images yet.

Still hoping for Blackcap and Bramblings to come back as we had last year, but nothing yet. But I thought I would show you what we are missing this year

In the local area, we have had massive flocks of Fieldfare and Redwing, both of which avoided me when I went out trying to photograph them yesterday. I found a great location earlier in the week and was hoping to be able to get them yesterday - but they had all moved to a different location that was too far away to photograph. Sods Law!! There is plenty of buzzard activity and I saw a great sight two Monday's ago on my drive to work after we had some very early heavy rain. In one field there were eleven buzzards on the ground in a ploughed field, and a further seven in the adjacent field. the heavy rain had obviously bought all the worms to the surface for a buzzard breakfast. I have only seen this sort of behaviour once before, which was last year when I was in Switzerland with Dave, and it was again similar weather conditions that caused it.

Slightly further off patch, there have been reports of good numbers of Waxwings. I have tried the nearest location a couple of times, but have not had a sighting.

I also keep an eye on the wildlife where I work, in particular the Great Crested Grebes on the lake we have there. Last year one pair decided to nest on a small patch of reeds immediately underneath an area where there was a footpath. Unfortunately, due to disturbance, their first attempt failed, but the second try was successful, although with only a single chick fledging. As part of major bank maintenance, in which there home needs to be completely rebuilt at the wrong time of the year as far as they are concerned. So they have been given a brand new floating island, pre-planted with phragmites reeds that has been placed in the middle of the area they occupy. So hopefully they will have a good chance of undisturbed nesting this year.

If you have any unusual sightings from your local patch, we would love to hear from you. Just drop a note in the comments.

Update: After I had finished writing this blog up, Sparrowhawk put another appearance in chasing a blackbird across the garden, about 30feet up, and then a hour or two later, I was just having a break from printing, looking out at the mass of birds in the garden, and everything just disappeared at great speed into the air raid shelters and the Sparrowhawk came stooping into the garden and put down into the Apple tree, which at least gave he a good view of him through the binos. He left again after a couple of minutes, still looking for his lunch.

Martin