The sparrowhawk & the hedgerow buffet.
Here on the farm we are lucky enough to have birds of prey, Buzzards, hen harriers, owls etc which you see flying above the fields, but the real star is the sparrowhawk which we await the return of each spring, not only does it return to the land but it has worked out that we have a feeding station for song birds in our garden which it uses as a fast-food restaurant, or as we’ve named it “the hedgerow buffet”.
Around the end of march, beginning of April, the song birds are plentiful, dunnocks, sparrows, robins, blue, great, long tail tits, finches etc, you name it their there feasting on a whole array of feed from hanging feeders that we provide throughout the winter and into spring, but back in 2021 however this joyus meeting of songbirds was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a sparrowhawk which flew through the garden like a missile just missing a dunnock in a flash of feathers then swooping up and banking like tom cruise in top gun to land on the garden hedge looking me right in the eyes as I looked out the kitchen window.
It looked at me till I ran to get my camera (legs were a blur) calming down I gently opened the door trying not to scare it away and slowly raised the camera to start shooting, but I needn’t have worried as it was quite happy for me to take its pictures as it searched the hedge for a snack, it delved into and through the branches which are a mix of hawthorn and ivy and other growth deposited by bird droppings from years ago, then it would stare me out again before returning back into the hedge, it returned in 2022 with a young male it was teaching to hunt, unfortunately the youngster was very camera shy and was off before I could get any pics of him, in 2023 we only had brief encounters with one as it was only around for minutes before leaving, as I write this we’re keeping everything crossed that they return in 2024, hopefully with there young apprentices.
