A Soggy Sparrowhawk.
29th November 2018
What an abysmal spell of weather we have been enduring over the last few days. Fierce winds and thrashing rain all last night again have resulted in the little seasonal stream in my garden running at a good flow this morning. A number of years ago the bed of this little stream got blocked in similar weather conditions, fortunately it happened mid-morning and I witnessed a stream running down the garden towards our house. I just about managed to unblock the stream bed before we were flooded out, but took a fine soaking in the process!! In an effort to combat this frightening scenario happening again I constructed a covered concrete catchment chamber at the entrance to our garden to direct this little stream into land drainage pipes, that I also laid, to efficiently carry the water through the garden, thereby eliminating any chance of future flooding. If this episode had happened in the night things would have been far more serious. After piping, the stream re-emerges in my garden lower down and flows openly for about ten yards once it has passed the house. This catchment chamber initially has concrete walls set at an angle to catch all the stream water, then they straighten up and two six inch diameter pipes are set into the concrete, two sets of mesh filters catch any debris, these need light cleaning about every three years. There is also an ash tree in our garden and I have to religiously clear the leaves dropped from this tree which can cover the house’s drain covers, it’s critical to do this regularly when you live near trees because you can be so easily be flooded out in weather like this. I have invested in a petrol driven leave blower/sucker and it is absolutely brilliant and highly recommended because raking and sweeping leaves can be a depressing and monotonous task, but thankfully it appears that the leaves are now all stripped from the trees. All these potential hazards have to be considered when you live right out in the country.
We are now heavily into our winter feeding programme for the garden birds, with peanuts, sunflower and niger seeds disappearing at a rapid rate in this hostile weather. The birds have taken a real battering this week and yesterday a Juvenile Sparrowhawk, that we see most days, was perched on a small garden fence up against a hazel hedge, trying in vain to get some shelter. We have watched it doing this on a few occasions lately and yesterday I had my little Sigma lens waiting to see if I could steal a few quick shots. When it appeared on the little fence I gingerly opened the front door of the house and poked the lens through the gap, I had my Canon 7Dii on silent shooting mode, it’s not silent but it is much quieter than normal. I managed to take a few shots and it appeared the bird wasn’t that bothered, I put this down to the inclement weather, because normally they are really wary and will fly off at the slightest sound.
After a couple of minutes I thought I’d push the envelope and try and open a side door which was much nearer the bird. I opened the door about a foot and the bird looked straight at me and I thought that was the end of it, but no it looked away disinterestedly and stayed put, so I pointed the lens and took a few more shots as it just stayed perched there.
Notice how the barring on the breast and belly are very coarse, as opposed to the adult female Sparrowhawk's barring having quite tight horizontal lines.
The barring on the breast is also broken up into chevrons on a Juvemile bird.
Look at the length of those middle toes and talons, specially evolved to snatch small prey from bushes and even bird feeder cages!
I think it was just too wet and cold to be bothered about me but after a minute or so it did finally fly off. However, I had managed to get really close to what is usually a very nervous bird.
We are now heavily into our winter feeding programme for the garden birds, with peanuts, sunflower and niger seeds disappearing at a rapid rate in this hostile weather. The birds have taken a real battering this week and yesterday a Juvenile Sparrowhawk, that we see most days, was perched on a small garden fence up against a hazel hedge, trying in vain to get some shelter. We have watched it doing this on a few occasions lately and yesterday I had my little Sigma lens waiting to see if I could steal a few quick shots. When it appeared on the little fence I gingerly opened the front door of the house and poked the lens through the gap, I had my Canon 7Dii on silent shooting mode, it’s not silent but it is much quieter than normal. I managed to take a few shots and it appeared the bird wasn’t that bothered, I put this down to the inclement weather, because normally they are really wary and will fly off at the slightest sound.
After a couple of minutes I thought I’d push the envelope and try and open a side door which was much nearer the bird. I opened the door about a foot and the bird looked straight at me and I thought that was the end of it, but no it looked away disinterestedly and stayed put, so I pointed the lens and took a few more shots as it just stayed perched there.
Notice how the barring on the breast and belly are very coarse, as opposed to the adult female Sparrowhawk's barring having quite tight horizontal lines.
The barring on the breast is also broken up into chevrons on a Juvemile bird.
Look at the length of those middle toes and talons, specially evolved to snatch small prey from bushes and even bird feeder cages!
I think it was just too wet and cold to be bothered about me but after a minute or so it did finally fly off. However, I had managed to get really close to what is usually a very nervous bird.