17 DECEMEBER 2025 – SPARROWHAWK IN THE GARDEN

To my knowledge I haven’t had a Sparrowhawk visit my garden since May this year, when I enjoyed an incredibly close encounter with a male and its Starling prey. But this changed when a Collared Dove fell victim of a large female Sparrowhawk that visited the garden shortly after 3.30 p.m.

Gary had come over for a chat and a cup of tea shortly before 2.00 p.m. when we observed three  Collared Doves, and he remarked about how attractive they were compared to the usual Woodpigeons that visited too. We took tea in my front room and Gary left about 3.25 p.m. and I went into the kitchen to wash up the cups, and (as usual) I peered out of the window into the gloom outside - it was an extremely dull day, with no sunshine, though it was dry - and immediately saw the Sparrowhawk on the lawn, plucking feathers out of what appeared to be one of the Collared Doves we’d probably seen earlier that afternoon.

I quickly grabbed my camera and took a few shots through the kitchen window, then thought I’d try and go out into the garden to attempt some closer shots, given that the Sparrowhawk seemed so occupied as to not notice me, but of course I failed miserably, with the bird (with what was left of the poor Dove) rapidly disappearing over the fence and out of sight.

There was only a large pile of feathers, with remnants of what was probably the Dove’s gizzard, left on the lawn, but I didn’t clear it up, on the grounds that it might  provide food for animals  during the night. Indeed, that is precisely what happened, since by morning, there was very little left on the lawn to indicate that anything had been preyed on by a Sparrowhawk. I strongly suspected foxes since I knew that at least one regularly visits my garden at night, and in fact I’d recently filmed two foxes on my trail cam in recent nights, so I was certain that foxes had taken what was left by the Sparrowhawk.

Of course, a probable consequence was that Collared Doves - which in recent months had returned to visiting the garden after an absence of nearly three years - would once again avoid the garden, down to Sparrowhawk predation. But in fact, a single Collared Dove was observed by my wildlife pond two days later, so maybe they might not be quite as affected as I’d envisaged.

COLLARED DOVE (the possible prey)

SPARROWHAWK (F) ON PREY

SPARROWHAWK (F) ON PREY