Mike Smith
Member
I made an interesting observation of the birds at my feeders yesterday:
Situation - around a dozen house sparrows on the seed feeders and 6 goldfinches on the nyjer seed with several more of each species in nearby bushes.
Suddenly the sparrows all shot into the bushes and a second later a very tight bunch of around 20 left at high speed and disappeared over the fence - very shortly afterwards a female sparrowhawk appeared flying towards the garden at about 75feet - flap-flap-glide and probably not hunting.
The goldfinches stopped twittering and squabbling and sat very tight and close on the perches of the feeders and remained so for about 2 minutes. Only when they resumed feeding did the house sparrows start to re-appear. The local starlings were of course all up in the air in a flock, only splitting up and landing when the threat was gone.
Has anyone else noticed the response of other species? I was quite surprised by the "sit tight" stategy of the goldfinches and wonder if the hawk had been at low level and hunting it would have been different?
Mike
Situation - around a dozen house sparrows on the seed feeders and 6 goldfinches on the nyjer seed with several more of each species in nearby bushes.
Suddenly the sparrows all shot into the bushes and a second later a very tight bunch of around 20 left at high speed and disappeared over the fence - very shortly afterwards a female sparrowhawk appeared flying towards the garden at about 75feet - flap-flap-glide and probably not hunting.
The goldfinches stopped twittering and squabbling and sat very tight and close on the perches of the feeders and remained so for about 2 minutes. Only when they resumed feeding did the house sparrows start to re-appear. The local starlings were of course all up in the air in a flock, only splitting up and landing when the threat was gone.
Has anyone else noticed the response of other species? I was quite surprised by the "sit tight" stategy of the goldfinches and wonder if the hawk had been at low level and hunting it would have been different?
Mike
