Sparrowhawk: After arriving home from a short walk with the baby I parked up on my drive and could hear a torrent of contact and alarm calls emanating from my garden.
I sorted out the baby and tentatively made my way to to the living room and peered through the French windows and saw this all brown hawk sitting, squat on my fence.
I've had a couple of sparrowhawk flying over the garden and have even had one on my neighbours roof, but this juvenile sparrowhawk is the first one I've seen visiting my garden in the 11 years I've lived in this house.
I take the view that having a sparrowhawk visiting your garden is a good thing and the presence of such a top predator indicates that the bird populations in my garden and my local area redoing well.
Since bouncing back, sparrowhawks have spread into many suburban parks and gardens they have adopted well relying on the element of surprise to catch their prey. And as such will often follow a regular route to get close to potential prey, which in gardens means using the cover of a hedge or shed.
The bird wasn't phased by my presence at the window pressing my big lens against the glass, it wasn't even bothered as I stood on s stool and peered over the back fence to get an unobstructed view without the double glazing.
It eventually whizzed off over the fence and out of sight. Hope it returns.
