A sparrowhawk’s cunning strategy

The latter boasts orangey patches on the brown and white striped breast, and slate-blue back, head and nape.

The two birds have different strategies for hunting their prey; and this is to be expected since they are adapted to chase and catch different bird species.

Birds of prey like hawks have quite significant size differentiation between smaller males and larger females and this enables them to live more easily within a single territory.

It may also serve to make the presence of the male less potentially threatening to the female and helps them bond as a pair.

The general sparrowhawk strategy is to scour their territory from on high and then to rely on speed and surprise to catch unsuspecting prey.

The female, for example, came swiftly over the ridge of the garage and dropped vertically into a climbing shrub with bird-feeders to emerge victorious with a blue tit.

On another occasion it came low over a hedge and nearly landed on my lap on the patio; this time exiting quite rapidly. The male has tried similar surprise tactics, but also a repeated swooping low across the garden from side-to-side between the hedges and fences.

However, this weekend I witnessed a new strategy based on the philosophy ‘all things come to those who wait’.

Essentially, the hawk flew in to land on a feeding platform close by my pole-feeder with nut holders, seed dispensers, fat-balls, and the like.

In this position it simply sat and waited very patiently.

On the ledge, but against the hedgerow climbers, the outline of the bird of prey was well disguised from the smaller and eminently vulnerable birds.

It waited and waited. I had observed that the garden was ‘very quiet’, but now I knew why.

Eventually, one of my local nuthatches came down to the feeder and, too late, spotted the hawk.

The whole episode was over in a flash and the hawk spent the next half hour devouring the carcass.