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What bird is this?
- Thread starter frank rabbets
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Animal Mother
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I think it's a Sparrowhawk.
He/she’s made a mess of the other bird, that’s for sure!
No idea of make and model Frank, but it’s a magnificent beast...
No idea of make and model Frank, but it’s a magnificent beast...
D
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Its a female Sparrow hawk the males are smaller and are dark gray on their back females are larger than males and dark brown on their back , Females kill birds upto the size of pigeons and will even kill Magpies .
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Yes I think Sparrowhawk. The victim was a blackbird. When it flew off it took it's prey with it and I noticed it had a very dark back. We have Sparrowhawks whiz through the garden regularly but I've not been able to study one for a long period. It was in the pictured position for about 25 minutes. Scaling off the ruler it was 33 cm "tip to toe". Goshawks start at 48 cm.
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D
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It is typical of a Sparrow hawk to pluck its victim eat some there and then, then fly off with the rest , when I lived the UK in Huddersfield I lived in the country side , Sparrow hawks were a common visiter in my garden , the favorite prey for females were pigeons , collard doves , black birds , and starlings , I have also seem them take magpies , male sparrow hawks favorite prey were sparrows , robins , and tits ect , small birds have the sense to hide deep into dense bushes to escape , When female sparrow hawks court their prey I could walk within a metre upto them before they flew off , as they dont like leaving it , Its definitely a female sparrow hawk in your pic . Goshawks are bigger and thicker set body wise but similar markings .
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D
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The pic you have of the sparrow hawk looks to me like a young bird (juv) less than a year old, when I was in my 20s I used to keep birds of prey I had a female common Buzzard which was quiet a large bird and 3 kestrels . In Cyprus I love walking near where I live , this spring a pair of saker falcons nested 2oo metres from my house , me and my wife loved watching them they dont half make loud noises , hooded crows used to shit themselfs when they accidentally flew near their nest with young , the falcons used to go for them if they were to settle anywhere near by . a 2 mile walk away I watch bonelli's eagles , Buzzards , other smaller falcons , and a 15 minute drive away (driving slowly in my lc ) this march I watched Ospreys at a reservoir . I love watching birds of prey they give me buzz ,
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I think its a sparrow hawk..
one recently wiped out the entire pigeon population (2). Of our back garden.
Back in the day they used to be shot. Especially by pigeon owners..
one recently wiped out the entire pigeon population (2). Of our back garden.
Back in the day they used to be shot. Especially by pigeon owners..
D
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Back in the day Peregrine falcons were shot by pigeon owners .I think its a sparrow hawk..
one recently wiped out the entire pigeon population (2). Of our back garden.
Back in the day they used to be shot. Especially by pigeon owners..
David
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A spar will never catch a pigeon in open flight
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A sparrow hawk catchers its prey by surprise like when there feeding or song calling , most falcons generally catch there prey in flight .
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In the early 1970s the thing to do in yorkshire amongst kids in there early teens was bird egg collecting , one learnt a lot about birds what bird the egg came from by its markings , when to go looking for them and where , from that a lot of folk became bird watchers as they grew up , I remember after watching the film KES in about 1972 I was determined to get myself a Kestrel , so I went out and found a kestrel nest with chicks and took one , terrible thing to do now when I think about it and illegal , In the 1980s you could by birds of prey ringed to show they weren't taken from the wild , and I had a common buzzard that was very tame , and two Kestrels male and female that hated each other, they were alright with the buzzard on there own, but I had to keep the Kestrels separate from each other and fly them separate or the would try to kill each other ,
Higgy
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I did exactly the same as Tony in the early 80s and kept the bird in my bedroom along with a Kawasaki ke 175 I was building... I bought live white mice from the pet shop and trained the bird to kill by tying fishing line to the mice and letting them go in the garden... One day theKestral jumped into a bucket of waste engine oil, I managed to clean the bird up and it was non the wiser.. THEN. one day my mother lets out an hysterical scream. The white mice had escaped all over the house (About 20 of them).. In the Hysterical panic the bird got out and buggered off never to be seen again.. And I was told I had to go and live with me Dad!.. WHY!!!
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WTF!
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Hi Higgy
Young Kestrels behave just like kittens they chase and play with any thing that moves . I sneaked my Kestrel chick into my bedroom but my mum found it the next day when I was at school , it stayed in the kitchen after that as it was just a white fluffy thing the size of a tennis ball , when it got feathers it lived in the shed , I used to feed it mice that I killed , I used to tie string to them and drag them round the garden , it soon learnt how to catch them and it really enjoyed doing it like a kitten would , I used to keep the mice in a empty fish tank in the attic they used to breed like wild fire , so it was cheap way to keep the kes going .
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