Predator spotting by a Blackbird (1 Viewer)

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 !

Hi,

Numskull said:

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 ?

Click to expand...

Coincedentally, I was just reading Birkhead's "Bird Sense", taking a break just after the paragraph answering that question:

"Ethologists in the 1930s and 1940s studying this behaviour in young chicken and geese worked out exactly what it was about a shape moving overhead that triggered the response: it was a long tail, short neck, and long wings."

Not to say birds won't amend that from individual learning, but Birkhead is talking specifically about an innate response shared by many bird species.

Regards,

Henning

i find it amazing that a response such as that can be instinctive, assuming somehow coded into dna! nature is incredible.

Hauksen

Thanks for the reply.
Interesting.
This Sparrowhawk was way up there. So high that to discern it's shape wasn't easy at all, but your reply makes perfect sense with regard to the tail length, although the wings are somewhat short and stubby. Maybe they are the clue's for any bird on the menu ?
In saying that about height, having watched the birds in my garden from close quarters over many years one thing I have noticed is just how incredible their eyesight is. Robins are able to detect tiny edible insect's at some distance.
I will say one thing, I'm glad I'm Human, and not a small bird living around these parts !
Cheers.

Hi,

Numskull said:

In saying that about height, having watched the birds in my garden from close quarters over many years one thing I have noticed is just how incredible their eyesight is. Robins are able to detect tiny edible insect's at some distance.

Click to expand...

The power of the birds' eyesight is in fact topic of the first chapter of Birkhead's book, and he fully confirms your observations!

Regards,

Henning

they say hawks can see a mouse tail twitch a hundred yards, and evolution would favour that. thus also the reciprocal, prey that can see the shape so high where we see a dot. so that is selection, but how does chemical dna then add the instinct that it is danger and pass that on? it is all chemistry, an image makes an adrenaline urge or similar and that brings in the reaction to find cover. amazing at that detail in a twist of code in a sperm invading an egg, then the patterns unfold.