Danny, one of my bird group sent me this new second photo below of a Sparrowhawk with a story attached which I did not know at the time went with this image below when I published it recently. Here it is again as it is part of the story.
It was in his garden, and was spotted on the branch outside his bedroom window by
his wife. He grabbed his camera and got a few shots. Part of the bird’s mating ritual is that the male
catches prey, and offers it to the female he wants as a mate and she either
accepts or rejects him.
Danny then crept over to the open window and looked down on the
ground and was amazed to see a female Sparrowhawk eating a Bluetit! He was able to get a shot without her seeing him. That is where that story ends. However, he had another tale to tell me.
One day a couple of years ago he came into the bedroom
to see a large faint marking on the bedroom window. I know you are thinking why did I publish this terrible image however Danny figured out how to get the shot into a more dramatic
image so that we could see exactly what the mark was.
He reckoned it was a Sparrowhawk who had been chasing a
small bird and did not see the window till the last moment, then it threw out
its wings and hit the window feet first – you
can see the feet markings if you look carefully. The rest of the body
hit the window with wings open. The impact knocked all the loose surface skin
flakes onto the glass. As there was no dead bird under the window, it obviously
survived.
Now I think Danny was very clever to be able to make this image above from the terrible one above it. Many thanks Danny for sharing these stories with us.
Although I will be publishing scheduled posts, I will NOT be commenting on blogs until after 31 July as my family are home from Malawi.
Hopefully you will find time to read some of the posts during this time and I hope to read as many of your as time premits.
Many thanks for visiting and also to all those who leave comments.
