Unexpected Visitor To Our Garden

[CeePee1952]

We have a trail camera set up at the bottom of our garden, primarily to watch a family of Great Tits nesting in the nest box earlier this year (and the "resident" grey squirrel that visits daily for his/her quota of peanuts!). To our astonishment, this appeared in a clip when I checked the results from yesterday!

 

Chris

[kpnut]

Is it a young peregrine? 

[Poppy]

It's a sparrowhawk.

 

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/birds-prey/sparrowhawk

[dom]

The eyes are the best indicator. Sparrowhawks are yellow - peregrines are black.

[Gracie]

1 hour ago, CeePee1952 said:

We have a trail camera set up at the bottom of our garden, primarily to watch a family of Great Tits nesting in the nest box earlier this year (and the "resident" grey squirrel that visits daily for his/her quota of peanuts!). To our astonishment, this appeared in a clip when I checked the results from yesterday!

 

Chris

Wow! Beautiful, thanks for sharing 

Grace x

[kpnut]

1 hour ago, Poppy said:

It's a sparrowhawk.

Many thanks. I could only see it from the back as the video wouldn’t play for me.

But I wouldn’t have known anyway!

[CeePee1952]

1 hour ago, kpnut said:

Many thanks. I could only see it from the back as the video wouldn’t play for me.

But I wouldn’t have known anyway!

This might show the eyes for you at the beginning of the video? The second video shows the sparrowhawk at the far end of the fence and we think it has found a sparrow or a tit in the bush! (It's not the squirrel as it appeared later).

Chris

 

 

[Gracie]

One lucky squirrel 

Grace x

[kpnut]

Thanks. I could open those ones. Nature just doing what it does. And as a Gracie says, lucky squirrel, looks quite a big squirrel, must be doing well on the peanuts. 

[Norfolkangler]

Its found your nest of tits unfortunately, Sparrow hawks, like most birds, lay their eggs to hatch when the food source for them is readily available. Tits being high on the list as one of their favorites.