The Sparrowhawk silence

There are three ways I spot Sparrowhawks. First, during their spring soaring flights, high over their territory, when they are very apparent then, though a bit distant. The second is when Carrion Crows alert me to their presence, when they are mobbing them, chasing them mercilessly while uttering the call that gives the name to this blog: a call that I directly translate in my mind as 'sparrowhawk!'. The third one I have got to call 'the Sparrowhawk silence'. It is an eerie silence just after the synchronic clap of many pairs of wings - Feral pigeons, Gulls - that replaces alarm calls in these birds, and the alarmed calls of Blue Tits or Blackbirds: no gull squabbles, no cooing, no chitchat. If I look up during the 'silence', I am bound to see the brown silent shadow of the hawk, flying low across the trees in the park. I have witnessed this a couple of times this week. Today, when the silence happened I was photographing a Mistle Thrush. It was feeding on a small, but exposed grassy area, but it didn't fly off. It just froze, for maybe two eternal minutes, tense, its tail pressed against the ground, just watching. Afterwards, it relaxed and carried on hunting worms as normal.

Spotting the Sparrowhawk

The pigeon flock in the park took off all of a sudden, like a loud clap. In the silence that followed, I looked up: The male Sparrowhawk flew into the tree tops, I managed to see where it landed, high up in a sycamore. The leaves made it tricky to have a clear view, but I managed a few shots. When I find a predator by interpreting the behaviour of their prey I get a satisfying 'Dr. Dolittle moment'. The rattling call of the crow that gives this blog its name, or the alarm call of the blue tit have pointed me to many a Sparrowhawk. The Feral Pigeons are probably safer in flight than sitting on the cafe roof when a Sparrowhawk is out hunting, so they take off as soon as they see the raptor in flight.

Fledglings

In the last couple of days I've come across a number of resident species with fledglings. Blackbirds were first, a short-tailed adventurous chick calling for food in the park, last week (below) and today (above) a Robin yesterday and a Song Thrush and Dunnock today. As the youngsters jump from the nest, they have to face a steep learning curve, they are more or less naive to predators, so in these days between fledgling and independence from parents they need to learn about them and also perfect their foraging skills, usually while they follow their parents, begging.
 Magpies and Carrion Crows start showing an interest on trees and bushes, listening for calling chicks, so the alarm calls of the adults, associated to the different predators are part of the learning process. The first mallard brood in the park has already disappeared, probably due to predation by Herring and Lesser-black backed gulls.

Blackbird fledgling, 29/04/2014, from the same brood as the top photo, today.

These goslings from a local park already show a great interest in people, usual food providers here.

Young Robin

A sleepy Dunnock fledgling

A song thrush finding food for its youngster...

Young Song Thrush fledgling and busy parent.

A Magpie in search of nests or young birds in the undergrowth.

A Herring gull in the park having mallard for breakfast this morning.

Blackbird cleaning slug

In the last month, I have observed four blackbirds eating large slugs. They spend a long time wiping them from side to side on the ground and then, as the one in the photo, cut them in smaller pieces - possibly to feed nestlings. I was alerted to the presence of this one in my garden by my cat, and I had time to snap a single shot before the blackbird picked up the slug and flew away.

The crows have frog for dinner

The pair of crows on our street has been late building its nest. After a lot of territorial fights with their neighbours, they only started last week, on top of a lime tree, but the nest looks like it is now finished. One of the pair was sitting on the nest this afternoon, and kept calling softly, made me think of the way rooks caw. The other flew to the roof nearby carrying something floppy. I thought it would be a strip of bark, which they often use as lining material, but when the crow started pecking it hard and lifted it I saw it was a frog. The crow on the nest - presumably the female- was obviously very excited about this, flew close and started flapping her wings, calling pleadingly, while the first crow fed. I couldn't see if the frog changed hands (claws?) but in crows females incubate the eggs and the male is in charge of feeding her so it wouldn't surprise me if she also had frog for dinner.

The male feeds on the frog

The pleading crow

The Herring Gull pair at The Rock

More often than not there will be a Herring Gull pair by the pond in my local park. I assume it must be the same pair, as seagulls are long-lived birds and they behave in an aggressive way to immature gulls that land near the pond. This pair likes a particular spot which I call "The Rock", a vantage point on a promontory on the edge of the pond, and both individuals often stand there side by side.
 Today, a gang of excited Mallard males were giving chase to a female and one of them started mating with her. This behaviour is common in Mallards and is known as forced copulation, where there is no display and the female is corralled by males who are not their partners and forced to mate. The gull, which was very close, saw this, walked to the mating pair, and pecked the male! Not just a gentle peck, no, she even got some feathers out of him. This was a bit too much for the drake, his passion was quickly dispelled, he dismounted the female immediately and walked away a bit ruffled while the other drakes watched. Everything happened fast and I only had time to take a shot of the last part of the scene (below).

 Ouch!

The pair of Herring Gulls at the Rock 

Some twenty minutes later I noticed the pair were calling noisily with their miaowing calls, they were feeding on something on the ground. An egg! By the look of it it was a duck's egg all cracked and its contents spilled on the path. When I went to check, it had all the looks of an infertile egg. Still, the seagulls took turns feeding on it.

 One of the Herring Gulls feeding on the egg

The spilled egg