Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyone know what type it is? sorry for the grainy shots (taken through a window with a mobile phone cam and near maximum zoom)

Malc

Where there any snails involved?

Looks like a sparrowhawk , but quality isn't great.

Those squares (patio) are about 50cm to give you some sort of scale...

I thought sparrowhawks were smaller than that? it struggled to fly away with the corpse (dropping it twice)

Malc

Damn it, that's exactly the road I was going to go down when I saw the thread title.

A sparrowhawk is about a foot long (30cm), so if those patio flags are about 50cm, I'd say that was roughly the right size.

I agree. Certainly not a buzzard. We get those around here and they happily carry off rabbits. Bloody huge they are and I often see them at close quarters on my bike.

Was also lucky enough to see an owl hunting during daytime once.

Peregrine falcon.

Nun.

Sorry, that's a bird of pray.

Golden Eagle.

I wish...

Malc

That was my first thought, and checking back to Google images it certainly looks a fair bit like one. They definitely target pigeons, too.

I'd be fairly sure it's not a penegrine - they hold themselves differently, and that's not a falcon tail.

Bear in mind there's an enormous size difference between male (small & bluer) and female (larger and browner) sparrowhawks.

Dave's right, it's a sparrowhawk.

Fair enough! I can only look on the net and say ‘Looks a bit like that, it does’, so any experience at all trumps mine.

Video (once again, grainy and zoomed and through a window, and my reassuring voice)

Malc

Stringfellow Hawk.

It's an Esquilax.

They're fucking awesome predators Sparrowhawks. About a month ago I was in my grounds (tiny garden) and a Sparrowhawk came crashing through the trees chasing a starling. It must have been about six feet away when it shot past into the neighbour's garden.

As Dave says, that's without doubt a male Sparrowhawk, the colourings and markings are spot on.

If you want to cheat, just say it's a Falcon, that's the family group

Man, that pijjin got KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT.

We have a lot of owls around here. They make cool noises at night

Mind you they have a lot to eat I guess..

I've seen a couple of sparrowhawks over the airfield up the road. So awesome to watch as you know they're scouting for prey

Nah, it's not. It's the order.

Fammily groups are.

Kestrels, Penegrines, Merlins, Hobbies... = falcons
Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, osprey, Kites... = Hawks.

It's a Sea Eagle.

It's actually a gryphon. Also, that's a jackalope, not a pigeon.

It's a Millenium Falcon

No, it's a Hudson Hawk.

Looks like a Maltese Falcon to me.

It's a wren.

It is my considered opinion that your picture, sir, is of an archeopteryx.

Is it not Peregrine Worsthorne?

Dickie Bird.

The bird is the word.

Another vote for Sparrowhawk - pretty rare to see one like that though.

Had the local flight of 300+ parakeets fly overhead when I was sitting in the garden this afternoon. An absolutely astonishing sight.

I looked out last night and saw a cock or two.

Its a whatever,dickie bird

I hate those bloody parakeets!

If they just flew over me it would be great but they tend to sit in a tree nearby squawking all day.

love the parakeets. Watching them fly in a huge group around grey London is magical. I wonder how far north the populations have spread by now.

My cat once brought a sparrowhawk home - alive. I get home from school, see a statue thing on the windowsill, think, "huh, that's new" then it turns and looks at me! Scared the crap out of me.

Yeah its a Sparrowhawk, man, you're real lucky to see one, especially eating a pigeon like that.



We get them at work, down in South East London, there's not a big group of them but just a small flock that rest in the trees near the railway line. I've seen them in Syon Park in South West London too. Northwards, man I haven't a clue.

I used to live just the other side of the river of Battersea Park, and sometimes you could see whatever hawks they had there, but I never saw them catch anything, just circling over head.

Also, my current bus to work passes through loads of farmland and I often see some browner and larger hawks/falcons hunting rabbits there.

Malc

There's a lot of smallish flocks. I'm down past Catford, and saw several hundred at the weekend, that must have been a number of the smaller flocks together.

I looked at that pic and thought it might be a kestrel; I wouldn't have thought a male sparrowhawk was up to killing a pigeon.

It's unusual, but certainly far from unheard of.

Fair do's, I'm far from an expert. I do love falconry though; birds of prey are magnificent creatures. Saw a peregrine display last month and held an eagle owl etc. with the family, amazing.

We frequently get kestrels, buzzards and sparrowhawks around here and hear owls calling all the time, albeit I've only ever actually seen one (a barn owl in flight) once.

I've been known to do various falconry. Never with Sparrowhawks though. Mainly Harris Hawks due to their unusual degre of socialbility for birds of prey.

Yeah, I hear sparrowhawks are virtually impossible to work with due to their very difficult temperaments; they effectively cannot be tamed, I believe.

Is it a Chesney Hawk?

Tony Hawks

Tony Hawk

Malc

I don't get the third one.