I was in my garden looking at the soft fruit bushes when there was an almighty squabble which i took to be the fledgling sparrows arguing imagine my surprise to find a beautiful sparrowhawk sat on my fence less that 5 feet away!!
My dog scared it off but what a joy! Given my house is in the middle of a housing estate and this is the second time i have encountered a sparrowhawk in my garden it would seem that one has set up a territory in among the gardens.

Similar thing happend to me midday yesterday. Lovely looking bird, I could see lots of detail on her. This was in Frome, also in a housing estate.
Regards, Lee.

That's great news Lee i hope given the terrible decline in raptors that things are certainly looking good for some of the species. The number of Buzzards near me is incredible i counted 13 on telegraph poles recently as i traveled the nine miles to taunton. I wonder if anyone else in somerset is seeing this in their gardens?

Interesting, but how many Kestrels did you see? I drove down from Yorkshire on Saturday and saw only one, and none on the way up.

Hi Simon
I do see a couple of kestrel usually on a daily basis that would be about 6 or 7 miles apart, we have near me some Merlin and i have seen some Hobbies but Kestrels are few and far between it does seem certain birds of prey are doing well whilst others aren't. The local farmers near me do leave quite wide strips on the edges of fields and the kestrels i see are on the rural roadsides using these strips for hunting, I agree the situation is desperate and where we usually saw loads on the Motorway sides they have definetly disappeared. It could be the fact we have 2 million more cars on the road than 10 years ago and that pollution and noise might have driven them off. Lets hope we see a good recovery soon!

Kestrels are doing OK in the Coleford area with at least 3 different territories.
There was a Kestrel recently happily perched in the middle of Clarks Village during my lunch hour. There has been a very people tolerant Kestrel in and around the Clarks HQ site for a couple of years. Presumably the same bird.

We too had a sparrow hawk land on the fence in the garden, but the surprising thing for us was the 2 wood pigeons sitting on the grass six feet away.

Short sighted sparrow hawk or just looking for a snack not a meal!

Last week our Garage door in Backwell was open, we heard a flapping noise near the rear window, it turned out to be a Sparrow Hawk, we think it must have chased another bird into the Garage, luckily it escaped unharmed, there was no sign of another bird.

A Sparrow Hawk regularly patrols the gardens in Three Hill View, Glastonbury and on two occasions has actually landed in my garden. Not witnessed a kill though even when there are a lot of small birds visiting. Watched it flying high over the town yesterday before it headed NE over the hill.

Short sighted Sparrowhawk,perhaps sensible depending on whether male or female, a male Sparrowhawk weighs in at 145gramms a female 290 to carry away a Wood Pigeon at 540gramms would take some doing.