I have seen this many times, But yesterday was something else.
Feeding my local, relatively tame Blackbird, it started to look skywards. A look in the direction confirmed there was a Sparrowhawk thermalling above the house. But the amazing thing was that this Sparrowhawk was so high it was nearly a dot !
I guess none of us will ever know, but I wonder... are birds taught by parents what a Sparrowhawk looks like when in the sky, or is it inbuilt instinct ?
Any non predator flying high above get's no attention from the songbirds, and suchlike. For instance Seagulls, Corvids etc.
Buzzards at altitude don't seem to bother them that much.
But a Sparrowhawk, regardless of how high it is ( this was way, way up there) immediately capture their attention, and they keep their eye on it the whole time. I can't emphasize enough how high this Sparrowhawk was. It took me a while to spot it, and my eyesight is good.
Pretty amazing !
Feeding my local, relatively tame Blackbird, it started to look skywards. A look in the direction confirmed there was a Sparrowhawk thermalling above the house. But the amazing thing was that this Sparrowhawk was so high it was nearly a dot !
I guess none of us will ever know, but I wonder... are birds taught by parents what a Sparrowhawk looks like when in the sky, or is it inbuilt instinct ?
Any non predator flying high above get's no attention from the songbirds, and suchlike. For instance Seagulls, Corvids etc.
Buzzards at altitude don't seem to bother them that much.
But a Sparrowhawk, regardless of how high it is ( this was way, way up there) immediately capture their attention, and they keep their eye on it the whole time. I can't emphasize enough how high this Sparrowhawk was. It took me a while to spot it, and my eyesight is good.
Pretty amazing !