Bird of Prey

[mellonia]

Hi

My Daughter, has recently been in hospital she had an op on her arm as broke it in three places on the trampoline and had to have a metal plate put in,bless her she has been so brave.

Anyway while she has been on the childrens ward up on the 13th floor of the hospital, i have been having a little look out of the window it is surrounded by other hospital buildings approx 5/6 floors high and sitting on the edge of one of these was a building a smallish bird of prey brown with a straight across grey tail, he is waiting to pick pigeons off, that are roosting about. He is gorgeous swooping down to try and catch them, very interesting if you are tuned into wildlife, this is the inner city, dont know what sort of bird he is.

Do you think the hospital has arranged for him to be there to get rid of the pigeons or do you think he has just arrived.

She has been waking around 4.30am and 5.30am for her pain killers, so have been having a little look then to see if we can see mr fox, he hasn't been around to my knowledge so feel chooks are safe, i don't think he can get in our garden.

She is doing well and on the mend, little soldier.

Mellonia

[Meanqueen]

Hi Mellonia,
Such a shame for your little girl, those trampolines should be banned, sorry, I'm not a killjoy, but there have been loads of accidents with them.

I love to see birds of prey, it is so fascinating to see them at a country show demonstrating how intelligent they are. It's amazing how they always return to the handler. At a show last summer the bird flew into the trees, and didn't return. The handler kept calling it back but it was teasing him, attempting to land, then taking off again. It returned to his hand right at the end of the demonstration, we were all on tenderhooks thinking he had lost his bird forever. It was all part of the show, he had trained his birds very well.

Best wishes to your little girl
Ilona

[saint-spoon]

The colouring sounds like a male Kestrel, that’d be my guess if it is the size of a thin pigeon.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdgui ... /index.asp

from that link you could also look at peregrine and sparrowhawk but my guess is Kestrel.

Hope that your daughter's arm mends soon.xx

[mikey]

Hi,
if its going for the pigeons then its more likely to be a sparrowhawk. In general the femails take on the pigeons as they are larger than the males and can carry the prey. Once saw a male take a pigeon, far to big for it and he spent 10 minutes draging it to cover as he could not fly due to the weight of prey.
If ever you want to see a wonderful display of birds of prey flying and are in the south then go down to the The Hawk Conservancy Trust at Sarson Lane, Weyhill, Andover. No matter how many times I went there it was still a trill to see the birds in action.

[saint-spoon]

there's the thing, sparrow hawks usually take smaller birds than pigeons, as do kestrels and both can have brown undersides albeit for different genders. peregrines are more likely to take pigeons but don't have the brown bit.
you are more likely (if you are lucky) to see sparrow hawn in and around woodland although they can be seen in rural gardens (so i've been told). kestrels are all over the place.

[saint-spoon]

female sparrow hawks do have the brown underside though so you could be spot on there...... and are indeed bigger.

[mikey]

I used to live in the middle of a town and had a sparrowhawk in the garden quite oftern one year, used to sit on the fence waiting to see if anything else would come back in the garden. This one was a male and would chase the blackbirds and sparrows but they knew which bush to fly into to beat it.

[seahorse]

When we lived at maughold, the sparrow hawk used to sit on the bird table, though all the little birds had scarperd. It was sitting there hoping for a snack! One comes regularly to the garden at work, and it finished off the last of the doves. The colonel curses if he sees it

[misty]

I think ours is a female sparrow hawk. It mainly kills blackbirds and treats the patio as if it owns it, strutts around on the floor and I've opened the back door and it hasn't flown away!

[saint-spoon]

WELL YOU LIVE AND LEARN....

[wendy]

We have birds of prey in the field behind us. But heaven knows what they are.
I thought sparrowhawks were rare nowadays? learn something new everyday.
Wendy