Somerset Ornithological Society - Bird News
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Finches & the Like 1 Bird of Prey 0

Finches & the Like 1 Sparrowhawks 0
One of my neighbours knocked my door this week - to say that they found a bird, injured on their lawn;
“It was clearly ‘stunned and sitting very quietly with its eyes closed - after it flew into our window pane!”
She said that it was quite big, brown and with one of those ‘hooky beaks.’
I suspect that most of you are well ahead of me already!
So, of course, I went over there, and sure enough there it was – just as described. After a while it did open its eyes, but quickly closed them again when it saw me!
I could see it was a Sparrowhawk. It was almost certainly a juvenile? It was brown on its back with some very distinctive white blotches on the back and nape. The chest was dashed / streaked, on a white background – you could also see the ‘Sparrowhawk’ eye-brow and the barred tail.
On picking up the bird it felt quite small and light. My initial impression, due to the colouration, was that it was a young female? Now, I’m not so sure about that? As I’ve since read that young sparrowhawks are very similar? So, as this particular bird’s size is questionable, I am left wondering?
Luckily my neighbour took a photo, so if it comes out OK I’ll send it on to one of our ‘experts’ and get it checked out.
I took young ‘hooky’ to the local field as I didn’t want the local moggies giving it a right duffing. Again, it sat stunned for a further 20 minutes or so, as I watched over it from a safe distance.
Just as I was wondering if it had a broken wing or the like, and this was going to be an all-night job, a dog walker came into the field nearby and its dog immediately started to bark loudly! With that, young ‘hooky’ opened its eyes and then went straight into ‘take off’ mode, away it went, before gliding up into a tree – probably with quite a headache I would have thought!


Re: Finches & the Like 1 Bird of Prey 0

Glad it had a happy ending!

I doubt you will see one quite that closely ever again!