A sparrowhawk on Shoreham Beach

Our first morning back at home after a week camping transformed from quiet and sleepy to excited in an instant. One of my daughters spotted a bird of prey in the back garden. I grabbed my camera, slapped on my longer lens, and tried to grab some decent images of what seemed to be a young female sparrowhawk on the fence.

I have a suspicion she was watching our neighbour’s bird table. Our feeders had been empty for the best part of a week, but Sue is good at keeping hers topped up. I’m not sure many small birds would be tempted to the table with a predator so clearly watching, but a magpie had no such qualms…

I suspect that either the sparrowhawk wasn’t hungry, or that it saw the magpie as too much of a challenge. It eyed it up a few times, but made no aggressive move at all, apparently happy to just perch on the fence.

But apparently the magpies weren’t happy about their new neighbour, because a second one flew in from a nearby roof, heading straight for the sparrowhawk. There was a brief moment of aerial combat, and then the sparrowhawk took off up the river.

I do hope she comes back. She’s an absolute beauty: