Sprawk

After talking ourselves to a standstill last night, my sis and I regrouped this morning and began again, while R fed us a steady supply of toast, and endless cups of tea. In the odd way that you can unexpectedly learn something new about someone you've known for over half a century, I discovered today that K is superstitious about magpies, and it was in standing up to look out of the kitchen window and reassure her that there were at least two in the garden (as there usually are), that I realised there were no magpies at all any more, or indeed anything else with wings, apart from this Sparrowhawk and the unfortunate dove it had just taken down.

"And me without a camera," I said bitterly, scuttling out of the room and up to my study.

By the time I came back, the sprawk - a juvenile male, I believe - had moved his prey close to a crowded shrub border, presumably on the basis that it would be hard for anyone to creep up behind him just there, and was mantling over it and scowling furiously around as if certain that he was about to be robbed of his prize. This looked rather performative to me, given that a kind of shocked silence was hanging over the garden and nothing was flying anywhere in the vicinity, but if you've had to compete for food in the nest, I guess it might inform your attitude even as a young adult.

I'm sorry to report that at this stage the dove was still alive, though obviously doomed. After a while the Sparrowhawk plucked it enough to expose the breast, and then began eating, at which stage things became rather messy. I'll spare you the photographic evidence, but it was something of a relief when he finally decided to pick up the remains and move them elsewhere. He barely made it off the ground with the dove - which will have started out very close to his own size and weight, even if it was a little lighter by this stage - but just managed a dipping and effortful flight down the garden, and disappeared from view. According to the RSPB, male Sparrowhawks usually confine themselves to killing smaller birds such as Chaffinches and House Sparrows, though the larger females will tackle prey up to the size of a Woodpigeon.