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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Bean" data-source="post: 1435252" data-attributes="member: 64331"><p>I didn't see the initial attack. My attention was drawn by the 'kerfuffle' outside. I looked out my kitchen window to see what all the fuss was about and there were no birds at all in my back garden, which was unusual, just sounds of agitation from hidden birds. I first thought it was maybe a cat, so I looked out my side window onto my long drive (typical escape route for local cats) but saw nothing, so I went upstairs for a better view. Still nothing, but then I noticed movement on next-door's drive, so leaned out of the window and saw the Sparrowhawk dragging the Pigeon, which may still have been alive, behind  a bin in the corner. I grabbed my binoculars from another room and by the time I could get a good view the Pigeon was probably deceased, since the only movement was the Sparrowhawk ripping feathers off it. So I raced downstairs for my camera, then spent a half-hour or more trying to obtain shots of the carnage at extreme telephoto range, not easy because I didn't want to disturb the Sparrowhawk and I was half-hanging out of a window, sideways on! Some time later, a Blackbird alighted on my fence, oblivious to the goings-on below, but then it turned its head and I wish I'd had time to picture the look of dismay on its face! When the Sparrowhawk had eventually eaten enough, and leaving a mess of feathers on the path, it swooped over my fence and darted into a dense tree in my back garden. I could just make out its shadowy movements, then all went quiet. I was about to give up, when suddenly it came into full view for a few seconds, just time sufficient for one click of the shutter, showing some blood on its claws, then it flew off. My guess is that, at the outset, the Sparrowhawk probably sat patiently in that tree, in wait for its next meal, and one of the usual Pigeon visitors to my garden obliged, falling prey to this watchful predator, whereupon it carried its kill to a secluded corner where it could feed undisturbed, if not unobserved. The only other incident I've seen of this kind was a couple of years ago when a Sparrowhawk caught another Pigeon and devoured it at the bottom of my back garden, under the bird table, in the corner of the wall, a safe place to keep a good lookout. It calmly took half an hour to eat its fill but, because I'd not got a charged battery in my digital camera, and no film for my 35mm SLR, I had to be content with viewing the scene with my binoculars, so the event went unrecorded, except in my memory. I have regular wildlife visits to my garden, including two or three Grey Squirrels daily, one of which comes begging at the backdoor; if I don't respond with alacrity, it climbs the pebbledash and looks in through the window, as if to say "nuts!".</p></blockquote><p></p>

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