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

Adult male Sparrowhawk! Dave

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.

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.

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 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.

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 wrote: »

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

I think it depends on the density of prey - Erris has a great mix of habitats that attracts big numbers of waders, wildfowl and other species. Achill while good, doesn't probably support as much, though the likes of Peregrine and Merlin should be present. Ballycroy is meant to be a good place for various raptors too. Achill use to support a good population of both species of eagles as recently as the end of the 19th centuary. Hopefully we'll see those days again sometime soon.:)

Kess73 wrote: »

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.


Prey was even smaller than that, look at the amount of 'downy' feathers in comparison to the size of the Hawk, and look at the few primaries or tail feathers present, they're only about a third the length of the Spar's tail. Dave

Tiercel Dave wrote: »

Prey was even smaller than that, look at the amount of 'downy' feathers in comparison to the size of the Hawk, and look at the few primaries or tail feathers present, they're only about a third the length of the Spar's tail. Dave

I think you are right there, good spot. I dug up some more of my own pics to see the final circle from a taken collared dove (the aftermath of the pics of my regular female that I put up) and the circle looks a lot different to what is in the OP's pic. I am way way off with my first guess methinks, and am thinking of a smaller passerine. The blue tinges are what threw me, and to be honest the blue should really have pointed me towards a smaller passerine like a great tit or blue tit but some of the scattered feathers look wrong to be either although I do need to be thinking scale when I look at the picture as it is such a vivid shot it gives the impression the sprawk is a bigger bird than they actually are and as such I was reading the scattered feathers with the same incorrect scale going through my head.

I find it much easier to tell what was taken by a sprawk when I can walk over and pick up a few feathers to examine whenever I come across a plucking patch on the ground, then from looking at a 2D photo.

Dubwat wrote: »

Just to add a bit more info on my situation.

The houses are 3 stories high and the housing estate is quite mature. So there's lots of trees, bushes and shrubs in the back gardens. Probably everybody feeds the birds somehow.

There's maybe a 20 metre gap between the houses and the 'valley' is maybe 1km long...

So I guess it would be a perfect hunting ground for a sparrowhawk to fly above the 'valley', spot his victim, and swoop down for the kill. There would be few escape avenues...

Having said that, it's odd that I haven't seen it happen before? Maybe the sparrowhawk is new to the area. Because the pigeons (or doves?) were carrying on as normal today...

Not odd at all that you did not see it before. Sprawks are excellent ambush hunters. They generally find a vantage point that hides them and they wait for the right moment to strike. They are also a very patient bird once they are in their ambush point if they know that potential prey are nearby. I have often spent up to an hour just watching my regular male sitting in one of his little hideaways as he watches the house sparrows move from area to area. They are capable of flying above and swooping down after prey, but that is not usually how they hunt and they are nowhere near as efficient hunting that way as they are as an ambush predator as they are not designed for long chases or open area hunting.They are built to hunt in confined areas where their acceleration and frankly amazing agility come into play.

The sprawk you saw could be new to the area and was checking out a new territory, but it is much more likely that he, along with others before him, are not a new to your area and have been hunting away. Just think about the attack that you came upon the aftermath of. If you looked at the spot where the sprawk was 20 minutes earlier or 20 minutes later you would not have seen the hawk and have never known he was there. I would suggest that where you live is part of the territory that he patrols and you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see him.

You might see him dozens of times after this, or you may never see him again, but the one thing you can be sure of is that you have a sprawk presence where you live. What you saw with your own eyes and your lovely picture prove that.

Yes...particuarly female sparrowhawks, vs. young crows...but can be a struggle.

Video of sparrowhawk dispatching a magpie. I believe that Crows (such as magpie) are the most intelligent birds but this sparrowhawk isn't stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Ycdt-agOA

fred funk }{ wrote: »

Great video. Do you reckon the Sparrow hawk knew to drown the Magpie or did they just happen to end up in the pond?

It happens too often that a sprawk will try to hold the head of a corvid under water or into mud for it to be a coincidence.

They will do it with corvids and wood pigeons if there is a source of water about that is at least a few inches in depth. There are a number of videos on youtube and elsewhere showing different sprawks doing the same thing to finish off another bird.

fred funk }{ wrote: »

Interesting stuff. I wonder, is it an instinctual thing or is it intelligence?

A bit of both would be my guess. They are a very good bird in terms of being able to adapt to situations and are excellent at changing tactics mid-hunt when one tactic is not working.

Attempting to drown a corvid is a smart strategy as it takes the strong beak of the corvid out of the fight, and weakens the corvid on two fronts, one being the sprawk that is on top of it using it's body weight to press down, the second battle front being the intake of water rather than oxygen into the lungs which would disorientate/weaken.

I have seen a female sprawk kill jackdaws and magpies without drowning (as there was no water present for that strategy to be used) but it is certainly a higher risk fight for the sprawk without the drowning option. Once there is water present be it a shallow pond, a puddle, a birdbath etc., then a sprawk will readily try to use it against strong prey.