Bird Kill in the Shruberry !

geordief

As I went down to the garden this afternoon I heard a noise in the trees (actually some very large bushes with a lot of ivy in the middle) and there was a short commotion which resulted in 2 birds falling to ground seemingly one ( the larger) on top of the other.

At my approach the larger bird made of without my getting a good look at it.

The 2 nd bird was left wounded on the ground and upon inspection it seemed to be a small pigeon -not an infant but not adult.

An hour later I returned to find that the first bird had returned to the scene and had eaten the head of the victim.

What kind of a bird might it have been?

I think there could be Long-eared Owls nearby.Might it be one of them (not that I have actually seen them this year)?

Or could it be a crow?

By the way I have never witnessed this kind of an event before .It was pretty shocking.

Birdnuts

Sounds like a Collared Dove, which would be a common prey item for a Sparrowhawk. Did you see the larger bird the second time or did you simply assume it had later eaten the head?? - the likes of rats and cats typically consume the head first so one of these might have finished off this injured bird. In any case what you witnessed was an every day natural event between prey and predator that maintains the balance of nature.

geordief

No I didn't see the attacker -I just gauged its size and strength from the loudness and concentration of the sound from the tree.

It was not a lot later that I returned to see that the head had been taken and so I suspect it was the same bird that did it.

Would a sparrowhawk have been likely to have taken off the head like that?

Are Long eared owls as likely as a sparrowhawk to have done it?

If the owls are around would their young be at risk from the sparrowhawks?

cuddlycavies

Sounds like a typical Sparrowhawk attack. Owls are nocturnal.

Kess73

A Sparrowhawk is by far the most likely attacker for the first attack, and, like Birdnuts, I would suspect that a cat came along and got a free meal afterwards hence the missing head.


A sparrowhawk would have plucked the dove, leaving a thick ring of feathers, and the sparrowhawk would have consumed a lot of the dove generally starting with the breast and other meat heavy parts of the body. A sparrowhawk would also rip off the wings etc to make the dove easier for it to eat.


A cat will usually start with the head and will often leave behind a corpse that is intact from the neck down. A cat will also leave the remains under cover, whereas a sparrowhawk will drag it into the open to pluch so that it can escape easy if it needs to.


As for your question regarding a long eared owl. The sparrowhawk is far more likely than the owl as the sparrowhawk is the most common bird of prey in Ireland, and when it comes to raptor attacks in gardens of houses it is nearly always a sparrowhawk involved. The owl in question is a nocturnal hunter that does not surface much during the day and would not be a regular threat to doves whereas Sparrowhawks will take doves and feral pigeons as part of their regular diet.


To give you an idea of what the ground looks like after a sparrowhawk has started to pluck (and then eat) a dove, here are a few pics I took on a mobile phone some years back. Excuse the picture quality as it was a 2 mb phone from about 15 feet.

The first pic clearly shows the female hawk well into her work and you can see the head of the dove is untouched, as is is usually one of the lastparts to be consumed by an undisturbed hawk.

geordief

thanks.
Well I would be pretty confident that it wasn't a cat since I would know if there was one around probably since I am in that area a lot (although it is not completely impossible).

Would the sparrowhawk stalk its prey in the tree? (I didn't hear the 2 birds come into the trees -just the commotion and the fall to ground -so I wonder if the sparrowhawk in question could have inherited a few spider genes )

The pigeon/dove was lying in the open when I returned so that would also argue against a cat having taken the head.

Actually ,after a little search I came across this related thread
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-26192.html.

One of the contributers says
"Looks like a sparrow hawk kill - they often just take the heads." (I have no idea if he is reliable)

Kess73

Anyone that says that headless birds is a sign of a sparrowhawk attack has not seen many sparrowhawk in action. The bird in the pic you put up looks like it has had a number of different species have a go. The plucking of the breast area looks the work of a raptor as it is very clean work, the head off looks like the work of a cat, and there is a puncture wound (which came long after the bird was killed going by the lack of dry blood around the wound) that looks like a corvid had a peck or two. Quite common to find a dead bird (or other wildlife for that matter) that has had two, three or more species all have a go at it after the original predator was disturbed/scared off.


It is one of the most common signs of a cat attack, or of a cat after robbing a kill. Often a fed cat will make a kill or find a fresh kill, and just take the head. They do this to rats, mice, voles, birds etc.


As for would a sparrowhawk stalk prey in a tree. Well that is pretty much how they hunt. They are an ambush predator that finds somewhere to hide be it a hedge, bush, tree, shed etc., and they pounce at high speed when prey comes close enough. They will also chase prey at high speed inside of tress and bushes as the sparrowhawk is adapted to being able to manoeuvre at speed in the tightest of spaces.

Have watched them chase birds inside the branches of a holly bush and not lose a feather. They will also chase prey on foot in or under trees/bushes. What they are not good at is chasing prey over a long distance and out in the open. They are quick over a short distance, but their lack of stamina means that if a prey species can stay ahead of them for more than a few hundred yards then the sparrowhawk will run out of gas.

Have had breeding sparrowhawk on my land for a good number of years now and have seen dozen upon dozens of kills close up and probably 10 to 20 time that number of failed attempts (they have a very low strike rate generally in terms of how often an attempted attack succeeds)


I have little doubt that what you first saw/heard was a sparrowhawk making it's attack from cover and bringing it's catch tumbling to the ground and that what you saw later was the work of a cat that robbed the catch and just took the head.

dodderangler

Sparrowhawk attack- big NO
I will upload pics if atone wishes to see what a raptor kill looks like when its done from My own hawk
This is as kess said a cat
Where abouts do you as I've also seen mink do the same as they so often do on chickens they go for the nutrients in the brain
For someone to claim it as a sparrowhawk kill has never seen a spar never mind it killing and IMO is just ignorant looking to blame on something else and not the obvious suspect

cuddlycavies

A flying Cat that looked like a bird! WTF!

cd07

This looks very like a Magpie kill to me I watch them killing young pigeons all the time. I hate them at this time of year

Kess73

cd07 wrote: »

This looks very like a Magpie kill to me I watch them killing young pigeons all the time. I hate them at this time of year

Whilst I think a corvid did have a go at the dead body, hence my comment earlier regarding the puncture wound, the plucked area looks nothing like that left behind by a magpie, There is a lack of the type of very deep scarring and tearing in the plucked area which would be a tell tale sign of a corvid beak at play. The plucked area looks a near text book match for work done by a sparrowhawk with the scarring looking more like a rash or an abrasion, and the wound where the neck and head were looks as though it was caused by chewing/teasing (as a cat does) rather than the pulling/tearing of a corvid (which would leave long jagged strips).

cuddlycavies

Yes that is a plausible explanation. it's not that unusual for a raptor to lose its target having been disturbed by cat or corvid.

ThunderCat

cd07 wrote: »

This looks very like a Magpie kill to me I watch them killing young pigeons all the time. I hate them at this time of year

Yea I came across something similar with a pair of rooks last spring. I was jogging through the countryside and cound see them up ahead pecking at something on the side of the road. As I got closer they flew up into a tree and I could see what they were picking at was a baby pigeon. It must have fallen from the nest while attempting flight. I could see that the pigeon was alive but unfortunatly beyond repair due to their beaks penetrating the skin so I dropped a rock on it to put it out of it's misery. Pretty upsetting to see I must say but unfortunatly it happens every day at this time of year. Nature is magnificently beautiful and brutal in equal measure it seems.

swifts need our help!

This is a juvenile Wood pigeon. Would a Sparrowhawk lift a bird out of a nest? Maybe the guilty bird was a Magpie, Hooded crow or a cat up the tree

geordief

No I am absolutely certain that it was another bird (definitely not a cat up in the branches) which carried out the initial attack.

I saw the 2 of them come out of the branches more or less together and I saw the attacker fly off (presumably because it was frightened off by my approach).

I wasn't close enough to identify the bird but the sound of the ambush was loud and "heavy"

From what Kess has said it would be usual for a bird like a sparrowhawk to hunt in the confines of a bush and I do not know if a magpie would do that .

I cannot see a nest in the area the pigeon fell from although maybe it is just very hard to see.

I appreciate that is was not a sparrowhawk that took off the head but I wonder if any animal other than a cat might have done it.... since I have a feeling that I might be aware of any cats nearby in the area.

cd07

Iv seen sparrowhawks take young pigeons from nests before but not as many times as magpies, Iv also regularly seen magpies scare sparrowhawks away from a kill. Nothing better than seeing a female sparrowhawk nail a magpie though, they aint so brave when they are on their own!!

Kess73

cd07 wrote: »

Iv seen sparrowhawks take young pigeons from nests before but not as many times as magpies, Iv also regularly seen magpies scare sparrowhawks away from a kill. Nothing better than seeing a female sparrowhawk nail a magpie though, they aint so brave when they are on their own!!

Yeah have seen female sprawks take down magpies and jackdaws over the years. Have a particularly large female that nests on my land without fail every year, and she is a dab hand at taking out the smaller corvids I named above.

The jackdaws she always hits hard from cover, and her current mate (he has lasted a few years with her at this point) seems to draw the corvids in to where she hides, but the magpies she always attacks near water and she always drags them into the water to drown them.

Have come across the aftermath of a few of her watery kills, with her still standing on top of the freshly killed magpie.

ThunderCat

Facinating stuff Kess. I presume Rooks and Hoodies are a bit too big for her? How do they act around her?

dodderangler

ThunderCat wrote: »

Facinating stuff Kess. I presume Rooks and Hoodies are a bit too big for her? How do they act around her?

I've seen pics of imprint female spar in England who regulary hunts and kills rooks and greys and magpies and the odd few gulls
I know tht its an imprint and flies bit heavier but I'm sure a wild spar female is a lot fitter and could well do it but may not risk injury

Kess73

ThunderCat wrote: »

Facinating stuff Kess. I presume Rooks and Hoodies are a bit too big for her? How do they act around her?

She has had quite a few stand offs with rooks, and has held her own when birds the size of gulls have tried mobbing her.

She has killed at least one hoodie ( crow not person wearing a hoodie ) to my knowledge.


The land I own behind my house is pretty bird friendly so between the natural food sources, cover, and my constant feeding there is a large population of the more common garden birds with the knock on effect being that the sprawks don't go hungry at any point either. The female is quite large and strongly built, a bit larger than average, and with the constantly available food supply she can maintain her size (not to mention it being part of the reason why she managed to grow quickly).

She also seems to be fairly successful each year in terms of breeding as come late summer I always get to see at least two, usually three, of that year's brood starting to hunt for themselves before they set off for new territories.

Kess73

dodderangler wrote: »

I've seen pics of imprint female spar in England who regulary hunts and kills rooks and greys and magpies and the odd few gulls
I know tht its an imprint and flies bit heavier but I'm sure a wild spar female is a lot fitter and could well do it but may not risk injury

Would agree with this. Have seen one hooded crow killed by a female sprawk, but for the most part she will display in an aggressive manner towards the larger corvids and gulls rather than risk engaging them.


One thing I have always said about sprawks is that larger corvids, gulls etc are lucky that a bird of the sprawk's temperament and disposition is not a larger more heavily built bird because ounce for ounce there are few raptors that bring such a natural fierceness (for lack of a better word) to the table. I have often thought that if one could considerably scale up a sprawk that one would get a hawk that would be closer to an eagle owl in terms of "personality", diet range etc.

dodderangler

Kess73 wrote: »

Would agree with this. Have seen one hooded crow killed by a female sprawk, but for the most part she will display in an aggressive manner towards the larger corvids and gulls rather than risk engaging them.


One thing I have always said about sprawks is that larger corvids, gulls etc are lucky that a bird of the sprawk's temperament and disposition is not a larger more heavily built bird because ounce for ounce there are few raptors that bring such a natural fierceness (for lack of a better word) to the table. .

Goshawk is in my opinion a big spar
Speed an agility almost identical even looks like a spar with different colours
And with its size a gos will take rooks and greys at ease along with gulls of diff species
Also a gos takes rabbits and hares but I've also heard of sprawks taking small rabbits and mice and voles and they make up about 5 % of their diet with 95% being birds

Kess73

dodderangler wrote: »

Goshawk is in my opinion a big spar
Speed an agility almost identical even looks like a spar with different colours
And with its size a gos will take rooks and greys at ease along with gulls of diff species
Also a gos takes rabbits and hares but I've also heard of sprawks taking small rabbits and mice and voles and they make up about 5 % of their diet with 95% being birds

Well I can confirm that they take adult rats with a fair degree of ease.:)

cd07

Im reading a book called The Sparrowhawk by Ian Newton at the minute a very interesting read for anyone with a special interest in Sparrowhawks! Its available from amazon if you lads want a good read!

Kess73

cd07 wrote: »

Im reading a book called The Sparrowhawk by Ian Newton at the minute a very interesting read for anyone with a special interest in Sparrowhawks! Its available from amazon if you lads want a good read!

Is quite a good book and his book on finches (though quite dated in some respects now) is also quite good and full of passion for his subject matter .


Whilst a number of things that he put in The Sparrowhawk have since been disproven/contradicted (by himself in a few cases) in the near 30 years since the book came out, a lot of it is spot on and was pretty groundbreaking in the mid to late 1980's when it was published.


Some of his more recent work has felt close to definitive though, and I do like Newton's style of writing.

For me he is very similar to Rob Hume in terms of style and depth of knowledge, and shows as much passion for raptors as Hume does for seabirds.