Meanwhile....a Killer Strikes!

As I opened the back door to say "Good morning" to Bella the semi-feral cat and give her some food I noticed two small, downy feathers on her food plate.  They were obviously from a pigeon and not the kind of feathers they lose easily.

Bella followed me as I took nuts to the feeder on the buddleja tree.  I noticed more feathers. I know that she has stalked and even killed one pigeon -she dragged its carcass into a neighbour's house.  I know she kills mice.  So I turned to tell her off but then noticed something.

No blood and the feathers seemed to have been plucked....I then noticed, about 5 feet (1.5m) away...another patch of feathers.

I looked around but no pigeon carcass.
If you look at the photo below -to the left of the black planter you will see on patch of feathers. To the right and rear by the fence you can see another patch.

Immediately I turned to Bella and apologised.  I have seen this all before. Strike. Kill, Pluck. Carcass moved 1-2m and then job finished.

Sparrowhawk.

I have posted photos of this before -including ones with the sparrowhawk at work.  There were two females and a male last year and they took a few birds. Took between 45-60 minutes for one hawk to break up and eat most of a full grown pigeon.  So where is today's carcass?

I had not heard or seen it before but last year I saw the female sparrowhawk fly off from the front garden and then come back, grab the carcass and fly off with it.  I then saw her (mature female as opposed to juv. female hawk) do the same with a kill she made in the back garden.  I saw the hawk do the same thing with the pigeon it had killed on the pathway by the front gate -there the kill was made and the patch of feathers about 3-4m from the gate.  The hawk then picked up the pigeon and flew into a corner of the gateway to finish her meal.  And then flew off with the carcass.

I looked up, in a few books, how these hawks eat -I have over 19 species of bird and all sorts of mammals come into the garden but I am a Felid and Canid man so I needed to check.  No one mentions hawks carrying off the carcass.

Now I have been woken at 0400 on a summer's day to find up to thirty magpies cawing and surrounded a sparrowhawk pressed flat on the ground as they dived at it.  On that occasion I intervened and the hawk made good on its getaway.  I have even seen the sparrowhawk on my fence with a magpie either side of it and harrassing it.  It happens.

I have seen an adult sparrowhawk (male) actually enter my hedges to chase out sparrows. Actually going into the hedges.  Never seen or heard of that behaviour other than here.  The thing is that the hawk was "playing".  It was now hungry or hunting but on several occasions I watched as it was just playing at scaring birds.

Now I know I mentioned that when I was sad enough to possess a ponytail (just up the road from where I live now) whenever I was working in the garden a sparrowhawk would shoot around the corner of the house, flip my ponytail and then shoot around the furthest corner of the house and was gone.  This happened five times and I just looked around because something had grabbed and flipped my ponytail!!!  It was only when I decided to garden but with the house in my peripheral vision that I saw it was a sparrowhawk to blame. Around the corner, grab and flip and around the other corner -3-4 seconds.  I stared and thought "Wow,. That is why I never saw what was doing it!"

But Bella is innocent for once: "It was the bird wot dunnit!"