Magpies hassling falcon

AustinLostin

I looked out my backyard on Saturday to see around 8 magpies all very interested in something in the flower bed.

I went outside and they all scattered and a peregrine falcon that was in the flower bed took off a few seconds later.

I was wondering had anyone seen this kind of behaviour before? It looked like the magpies had cornered it or something? Or maybe the falcon was after the magpies?

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TedR

It was more likely to have been a sparrowhawk, given that it was in the back garden. Birds do routinely mob birds of prey, both to move them on, and to make such a fuss that any element of surprise a predator might hope for is removed.

Sparrowhawk is the usual back garden visitor, it may well have been on a kill when the magpies moved in and ganged up.
A peregrine falcon would be a very unusual sighting in suburban surroundings, in and around house

Plus the magpies are well aware of the different threat posed by a peregrine... spars do take magpies, but they are a handful for them, and kick up such a racket that the rest of the magpie population wades in quickly, as you have seen

AustinLostin

TedR wrote: »

It was more likely to have been a sparrowhawk, given that it was in the back garden.

You could be right there, just looked up some images of a sparrowhawk. It was a beauty in any case. I am living quite close to the Poolbeg towers which I know Peregrines nested in at one point so my mind immediately jumped there.

TedR

Ah my home patch too :-)

deffo both species knocking around here as you have indicated

but I reckon spar, in the garden
I have regular sparrowhawk ambushes on the feeders in my own garden same area

fantastic to see the speed and agility, in fact I usually just realise something has happened...after it has happened :-)

tk123

The magpies in the park beside us have attacked herons (that were snatching duckings out of the water :eek:) and I've seen them dive bombing squirrels too lol - the squirrels were busy and didn't seem to care!

aonb

we have a lot of birds of prey around here - very rural - at the moment there are I think 5 buzzards nesting close by. When they flew too close to the rookery, they would be chased off by several crows. Ive seen other small birds swooping on them either trying to chase them away from nests, or to distract them. A buzzard was eating a rabbit in our garden last week, and some magpies and crows started to swoop down trying to grab the meat. The buzzard eventually took off, but took its dinner.