Breakfast Bar

I am sitting in the Study at the computer at just after 0800. A few minutes ago there was a commotion and the birds (mainly the several dozen rock pigeons on the ground) scattered and flew into windows and so on. Quite a din. All the sparrows on the feeders just evaporated. I then realised that sitting outside the Study door, having unsuccessfully tried to catch breakfast and crash landed into a rock at the side of the pond and ended up in the Astilbes, was a sparrowhawk. He fairly quickly regained his (or her) composure and flew off chased by a large contingent of the rock pigeons.

It's the first time I've seen and positively identified a sparrowhawk here.

Carol and Jenny at Gisla have a resident sparrowhawk (they have lots of trees) who regularly catches his breakfast at their bird table.

So my bird table and feeders are now not just a breakfast bar for the local cats (who don't seem ever to catch anything now that I've relocated the table) but for the marauding sparrowhawks too.

The starlings and pigeons are all back but the sparrows seem to have left for a safer breakfast venue.