Male Sparrowhawk (was - What kind of bird is this (Dublin city))

Dubwat

Can anyone identify this bird, please? It ate a pigeon in my back garden yesterday morning!!



A bit of background. I live in a row of tall terraced houses in Dublin city. My back garden opens onto the back gardens of another row of tall terraced houses. I guess it creates a kind of valley for the birds and, for years, we've had lots of pigeons and small birds like sparrows living there.

There's never been any trouble. Until yesterday morning, when I saw this bird finishing his breakfast of pigeon. He fairly wolfed through it!!

I've never seen a bird like this before in the city.

Thanks in advance.

krochford

i think its a falcon of some form

snowstreams

Its definitely a male sparrowhawk.

Mickeroo

My gut said Peregrine Falcon but I haven't eaten yet todat and snowstreams probably knows better

EoghanConway

snowstreams wrote: »

Its definitely a male sparrowhawk.

No doubt about it

Mr. Presentable

Beautiful pic, OP!

Birdnuts

A stunning males sparrowhawk - nice to see nature taking its course in the city:cool:.

Dubwat

Thanks for all the comments.

Like I said already, I'd never seen a sparrowhawk before. He was a tough looking fella - really muscular and a viscous looking beak. You wouldn't want to mess with him, lol. The strangest thing about the whole thing was the nearly perfect circle of feathers left behind.

Are they common in Dublin/other cities? I guess if they eat pigeons, they must be?

LostCovey

Dubwat wrote: »

Thanks for all the comments.

Like I said already, I'd never seen a sparrowhawk before. He was a tough looking fella - really muscular and a viscous looking beak. You wouldn't want to mess with him, lol.

Well except that he is only the size of a Mistle Thrush or so!

I think it's a young bird too (brownish tertials & tail contrasting with the slate grey adult type feathers - only visible because of the fantastic photo quality).

Yes they are common, but they are usually moving fairly rapidly!

LC

Tiercel Dave

Adult male Sparrowhawk! Dave

Tiercel Dave

A pigeon would be a big 'kill' for a 'musket'. Judging by the amount of feathers present I would say it's a smaller bird, a pigeon would shed a lot more! Dave

Andrew33

Lovely pic OP, beautiful looking killing machine, great to see nature adapting to city living, what's the expression? "Red in tooth and claw" literally! I've just seen the entrails still wrapped around one of his talons!

stupidusername

would love to know your location OP, would be great to see one in action up here. When I was in limerick, I used to feed pigeons from my apartment, and because they hung around the same place all the time, a sparrow hawk appeared every so often. only ever saw him twice, I'd have expected him to be bigger, considering the size in comparison to its prey, but yeah they do eat pigeons.

Kess73

stupidusername wrote: »

would love to know your location OP, would be great to see one in action up here. When I was in limerick, I used to feed pigeons from my apartment, and because they hung around the same place all the time, a sparrow hawk appeared every so often. only ever saw him twice, I'd have expected him to be bigger, considering the size in comparison to its prey, but yeah they do eat pigeons.

The male sprawk generally takes prey up to the size of a blackbird with far smaller birds making up the majority of a male's diet, but the female sprawk, which can be between a quarter to a third bigger than the male usually, can take prey to the size of a wood pigeon, and I have seen females kill magpies as well.

A male generally will not take a full sized feral pigeon, and when they do so on odd occasions they cannot eat all of a bird that outweighs them.


Nine times out of ten if a feral pigeon or bigger is taken by a sprawk then the hawk will be female.

stupidusername

ah interesting, thanks thing is she really wasn't that much bigger than the pigeons. but of course she could've been feeding young too.

Mickeroo

How do you guys see so much birds of prey? I live in the west and I hardly see any, I spaz out when I see a kestrel

Saw a golden eagle once, and some peregrine's when I was hill walking but thats it.

I remember seeing something that looked like a bird of prey flying low over a grassy field in galway, would that have been a sprawk(new favourite word btw)?

stupidusername

Mickeroo wrote: »

How do you guys see so much birds of prey? I live in the west and I gardly see any, I spaz out when I see a kestrel

Saw a golden eagle once, and some peregrine's when I was hill walking but thats it.

I remember seeing something that looked like a bird of prey flying low overa grassy field in galway, would that have been a sprawk(new favourite word btw)?

no that sprawk (:D) was the only one I've ever seen. and when she flew up, she was basically standing right outside my sitting room window, I was frozen! couldn't believe it. would love to see more, but being in a city, I suppose you don't really.

Kess73

Tiercel Dave wrote: »

A pigeon would be a big 'kill' for a 'musket'. Judging by the amount of feathers present I would say it's a smaller bird, a pigeon would shed a lot more! Dave

Would agree with this. The spread of plucked feathers is not big enough to have been a feral pigeon, and the colour of them looks wrong as well.

Feral pigeons generally come in around the 220g to 400g range, so going by how much has been cleanly eaten in the pic, it is highly inlikely it was a feral pigeon that it caught as male sprawks would generally range from about 100g to about 200g in the case of big males.


My first instinct was that it was a small collared dove, which many people would mistake as a pigeon, as the darker feathers in the pile do look like those on the tail and wings of those doves, and the feathers with the grey/blue tinges looks like the feathers on a dove's underwing patch.


A 140g to 190g male sprawk could take down and pretty much consume all of a 110g to 160g collared dove although it would stuggle to do the same with a larger collared dove in the 180g to 250g range.

Kess73

stupidusername wrote: »

no that sprawk (:D) was the only one I've ever seen. and when she flew up, she was basically standing right outside my sitting room window, I was frozen! couldn't believe it. would love to see more, but being in a city, I suppose you don't really.

Actually suburban and city areas are pretty good spots to see raptors. Sprawks thrive in housing estates as well as in the countryside, and Peregrine falcons do very well in cities thanks to big feral pigeon populations.

Mickeroo

stupidusername wrote: »

no that sprawk (:D) was the only one I've ever seen. and when she flew up, she was basically standing right outside my sitting room window, I was frozen! couldn't believe it. would love to see more, but being in a city, I suppose you don't really.

Aye I suppose Dublin city isn't exactly their optimum habitat alright! I'd imagine there's bound to be a few knocking around in pheonix park though. Apparently some peregrines have ben known to nest in Dalkey Quarrey too!

stupidusername

Kess73 wrote: »

Actually suburban and city areas are pretty good spots to see raptors. Sprawks thrive in housing estates as well as in the countryside, and Peregrine falcons do very well in cities thanks to big feral pigeon populations.

yeah, but I've still never seen any. and I do get out a good bit. unless anyone could tell me where to go?

Mickeroo wrote: »

Aye I suppose Dublin city isn't exactly their optimum habitat alright! I'd imagine there's bound to be a few knocking around in pheonix park though. Apparently some peregrines have ben known to nest in Dalkey Quarrey too!

been to the park so much, and have never seen anything out there.

Kess73

stupidusername wrote: »

ah interesting, thanks thing is she really wasn't that much bigger than the pigeons. but of course she could've been feeding young too.

Here is my regular girl having a feed. Sorry about the pic quality but most of my pics are at close range and with a mobile phone as I tend to spot things when I don't have a proper camera to hand.









And here is her mate doing his best to hide about three feet from me from me despite the leaves no longer being there to cover him





He actually managed to knock me onto my behind earlier this week. I was wondering out in the garden and he must have been doing his usual staying still despite me being a few feet away routine. I never spotted him and went to grab a seed feeder to refill it, and next thing I know a blur flashes by my face. I snap my head backwards by way of reflex, slip in the wet ground and land on my ass:D

I look to the side wall and there he was, glaring at me

6'3 and 17 stone worth of a gym rat left on the ground by probably about 150g of bird.

stupidusername

oh he told you!

Kess73

stupidusername wrote: »

yeah, but I've still never seen any. and I do get out a good bit. unless anyone could tell me where to go?



been to the park so much, and have never seen anything out there.

Quite often it is just a case of being in the right place at the right time. Sprawks are generally ambush hunters so by definition will out of sight a lot of the time.

I am pretty lucky as my garden and my land behind it is the main hunting ground for my regular male so I see him a number of times each day and I have his movements down to a tee at this stage including how he changes tactics when he gets disturbed. I would say that this year I have only gone six or seven days from almost ten months in which I did not see him in action.

My regular female I tend to see every three or four days, but often with her it is a case of spotting her moving btween locations early in the morning or returning to a cluster of trees where she often roosts at night.

Kess73

stupidusername wrote: »

oh he told you!

Am convinced it was revenge for the time he ended up inside my kitchen, and I had to catch him to let him out. Lets just say that a scared/angry sprawk can put up quite a fierce fight against someone who was trying to help him.

littlebug

Mickeroo wrote: »

How do you guys see so much birds of prey? I live in the west and I hardly see any

Same here.. and I'm out and about a fair bit. Maybe I just don't look hard enough or the Mayo birds are more shy :cool:

Kess73

Mickeroo wrote: »

This was just after I carried him from the kitchen and released him outside. He flew about ten feet from me and just stared me down and called a few times in his shrieking tone.

Mickeroo

littlebug wrote: »

Same here.. and I'm out and about a fair bit. Maybe I just don't look hard enough or the Mayo birds are more shy :cool:

I hope you're still talking about fowl!! :P

Yea its true though, pretty hard to spot around these parts and I'm always on the look out. Mostly kestrels I've seen but there's a few times where there's been ones I couldn't idenify for sure.

Kess73 wrote: »

More like this.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/RedMike/Picture013.jpg


This was just after I carried him from the kitchen and released him outside. He flew about ten feet from me and just stared me down and called a few times in his shrieking tone.

Haha he doesn't look one bit impressed at all!!

Birdnuts

Mickeroo wrote: »

How do you guys see so much birds of prey? I live in the west and I hardly see any, I spaz out when I see a kestrel

Saw a golden eagle once, and some peregrine's when I was hill walking but thats it.

I remember seeing something that looked like a bird of prey flying low over a grassy field in galway, would that have been a sprawk(new favourite word btw)?

I used to live in Erris Co. Mayo(still have a small holding there) and found it not bad for raptors - indeed I rember one particular day driving near Carrowmore lake when in the space of a mere 30 minutes I saw a Peregrine, Merlin and a female Hen Harrier:cool:

Kess73

littlebug wrote: »

Same here.. and I'm out and about a fair bit. Maybe I just don't look hard enough or the Mayo birds are more shy :cool:

I think that if you want to find a bird of prey like a sprawk, then it is more important to find prey rich locations that have good ambush points than it is to spend time trying to spot the hawk itself.

If you can find a few likely spots, then it becomes a case of patience and staying quiet rather than trekking about looking for the hawk to present himself/herself.


Look for signs of fresh kills, listen for alarm calls of smaller birds (the starling for example gives a different alarm call for a sprawk than it does for a cat, as does the house sparrow), and also pay attention when an area that had lots of natural sound with you in it goes unnaturally quiet.

Mickeroo

Birdnuts wrote: »

I used to live in Erris Co. Mayo(still have a small holding there) and found it not bad for raptors - indeed I rember one particular day driving near Carrowmore lake when in the space of a mere 30 minutes I saw a Peregrine, Merlin and a female Hen Harrier:cool:

I'm from more the achill area, land is a bit more open up erris way, might suit them more?