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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JCLynn" data-source="post: 1684931" data-attributes="member: 77625">Good and factual comments, and excellent thread additions, Chris and Kenbro.Prey and predator relationships are indeed fascinating.The bottom line of it all is, to me, not realy as exciting or as fascinating. Although we can regard a Sparrowhawk as 'top of the food chain' within it's ecological niche, thats all it is. Statistics and 'scientific studies' can reveal that a Sparrowhawk predates X percent of a local bird population, but only if that X percent is there in the first place.Discounting 'human factors' like habit preservation/destruction, I feel that non-predatory conditions such as weather at breeding time,availability of nest sites, and availability of food, have more of an imact on the populations of prey species than the predators ever can.Predators are much more dependent on prey species than vice versa. The ice on their pond is so much thinner and I feel they do very well to hang on to their place in nature.</blockquote>