Feeder and Weir

The Sparrowhawk at the Feeder

August 3, 2025 · 3 min read

I was at the sink with the window open. There was the usual mid-morning crowd under the feeder, sparrows and a few goldfinches and two collared doves picking up spilled seed from the paving, and then there was a grey-brown blur that came in low along the fence line and the doves went up and one did not make it. The hawk hit it a foot off the ground and the two of them went down together in the border in a cloud of feathers. It was over in perhaps two seconds.

She was a female, big, barred brown and cream beneath, with the yellow eye and the long legs that make them look slightly unfinished when they stand. She mantled over the dove for a few seconds, looking round, then started to pluck it. I watched for about ten minutes from the window. She plucked the breast clean, ate, and then carried the body off over the fence towards the paddock, labouring with the weight. A collared dove is not a small meal for a sparrowhawk.

What struck me was the silence afterwards. Nothing came to the feeder for forty minutes. No alarm calls, just absence. Then a single blue tit, then the sparrows in a rush as if nothing had happened. By lunchtime the second collared dove was back on the fence, alone.

I have seen sparrowhawks in the garden maybe a dozen times in eight years, mostly passing through, twice with prey. This is the first kill I have actually watched from start to finish. I do not feel bad about it. The feeder draws small birds, the small birds draw hawks, and a sparrowhawk has to eat as much as a dove does. What I will do is move the ground feeding spot from the open paving to the edge of the hedge, about two metres away, so the birds have cover to drop into. The hawk came along the fence, which is exactly the line that an open paved area leaves exposed.

The feathers were still in the border this evening, grey and white, drifting. Weather 22 °C, light wind from the west. The swifts have gone from the sky over the house since about the first of the month; I had three on 30 July and none since.