Sparrowhawk attacks

[PLUMPUDDING]

This morning as I was going up the garden to let the hens out, I heard an alarm call and a sparrowhawk flew past my head with a protesting blackbird in its tallons. It is a young male and has my bird feeders marked for a breakfast time visit. I didn't think it would come back for a while, but it had another swoop round an hour later.

I know it has to eat, but it is being a bit of a pest.

It was very funny yesterday morning. All the birds had obviously seen it and gone to hide except for a fat old wood pigeon with a droopy wing which was sitting on top of a domed crab apple tree, waiting for the squirrel to finish eating the peanuts on the feeder tray. It is so big it obviously doesn't think the hawk will tackle it. The sparrowhawk went in for the kill on the squirrel and veered off with about 1 ft to spare. The squirrel didn't even notice and kept on eating peanuts and the sparrowhawk sat about 6 feet away looking at it from the greenhouse electricity cable tidying its feathers. I'm not sure whether the hawk decided a squirrel was a bit too big, or whether it was surprised that it wasn't a bird. The woodpigeon just waited while they had both gone and came for its turn at the peanuts.

[Shallot Man]

PLUMPUDDING, can't top that, but around lunchtime witnessed two Doves mating, lets hope they do not lay and incubate the eggs.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Shallot man, I think pigeons and doves keep on breeding all year round unless it is very cold. The magpies keep going into the conifers that the woodpigeons live in and there is the occasional egg shell underneath.

One thing I saw on 22nd December was a pipistrelle bat flying around the security light. It is the first time I've seen one in the middle of winter.