Subtitle: Meet the Peckham’s
One of the highlights of 2022 for me has been sharing time with a new Sparrowhawk family that lives nearby and visits my garden on an almost daily basis. So join me as we follow a new Sparrowhawk family.
Sparrowhawks, or, to be accurate, ‘Accipiter hawks,’ are short-winged birds of prey. Sparrowhawks are perfectly adapted for rapid manoeuvring in woodlands, their primary habitat.
Sparrowhawks are sexually dimorphic – males and females are of different sizes and colours. Female Sparrowhawks are around 25% larger than the males.
During the mating season, the males are naturally cautious, as they are well within the prey range of the female, and it is not unknown for male Sparrowhawks to be predated by the females at this time.
Sparrowhawks are small, short-winged raptors with long tails. Mature adults have piercing amber-coloured eyes and thin, yellow legs. Female Sparrowhawks have brownish-grey backs and wings, and for those who love detail, a more significant white line above their eyes, whilst the smaller male is slate grey. The male’s barring on the chest and underbody is much finer than that of the female. It always looks like they are wearing ‘stripey’ pyjamas.
In early spring, I spotted a female Sparrowhawk in my garden. She was perched on a branch in the conifers that divide my garden from the neighbours. She was preening herself, presumably having just had a meal.
A few days later, I noticed the usual cacophony of sound from the local sparrows stopped as they quickly dived into the hedges around the garden. I saw a male Sparrowhawk perched high in the apple tree, beautifully silhouetted against the morning sky.
This was really exciting. I knew by the amber-yellow eyes of both birds they were both mature. Sparrowhawks will usually breed the year after hatching. Younger birds have greenish-yellow, lime-coloured eyes, whilst mature adults’ eyes resemble the colour of blood orange.
Sparrowhawks nest between May and July. They prefer to nest in dense woodlands, although they have adapted to live in parks, small coppices and more extensive gardens.
Their nests could be more pretty. A random collection of sticks and small branches, strung between a pair of branches, often high in the tree canopy. David feeding the family.
Sparrowhawks will lay 4 to 5 eggs that they incubate for 33 days. The chicks usually fledge from 27 to 31 days later. The male will do all the hunting to provide for the female while incubating the eggs.
Having located and monitored the nest, I began to call the male David and the female Victoria – collectively, The Peckhams. The nest was in a small area of woodland, on the edge of a former arable field, about a two-minute walk from my house.
It was around 12-15 metres from the ground and the usual mix of sticks and twiggy branches. I found the nest by watching where the birds were flying and finding discarded feathers on the floor. Over the following month, I checked the nest daily during my lockdown exercise. During the second week, I noticed Victoria was staying in the nest more and began the incubation countdown.
At this time, David would spend 12 to 15 hours a day away from the nest, hunting to feed Victoria and himself. He relies upon his speed, agility and the element of surprise to catch smaller songbirds, such as sparrows and bluetits. If you have ever observed Sparrowhawks hunting, you will know they use regular routes that provide them cover, such as hedges, fences or even a shed.
Sparrowhawks are regularly seen in gardens with good populations of small birds. A popular feeding station for garden birds will obviously attract them.
That’s why I saw David hunting in my garden. He arrived late morning daily.
I have a large population of sparrows that nest on the roof of my house, getting in under the ridge in the tiles and creating a labyrinth of tunnels and nesting chambers. Outside, I have some blue tits nesting, some in boxes, others in the crevices of the older trees and even some under the eves of the shed.
It was easy to tell when David had arrived as the cacophony of sound the sparrows make from dawn to dusk would suddenly go silent as they frantically took cover in the hedges and shrubs. The old crab apple tree was a popular hiding place for them until they realised David could easily take the sparrows from the outer branches or even in mid-air. That said, only around 10% of Sparrowhawk hunting flights are successful.
David Peckham instinctively displayed various hunting techniques typical of sparrowhawks – the characteristic of flying fast and low along the garden hedge line before flipping over the top to surprise his prey. On one occasion, he came over the garden gate and skimmed so close to me that I could feel the breeze as he flew past my head at high speed.
The sparrows instinctively go silent, but the blue tits often make a specific call. It’s clearly identifiable as an alarm call, a warning of the Sparrowhawk’s presence, and I have noted blackbirds and pigeons reacting to it as well. This appears to be a universal warning to all birds.
Due to their size, Male sparrowhawks are more likely to hunt the smaller garden birds. Despite their name, sparrows are not always the main prey of sparrowhawks; they will take any small bird species. The larger females can handle larger species, such as wood pigeons, doves and even magpies.
Sparrowhawks have long talons and typically take prey in a twisting motion, with the talons making an instant kill. They will then land and pluck the prey. This looks like a frantic stomping frenzy but is, in reality, a very efficient process with the precision use of beak, talons and toes. Evidence of this is “the fairy ring” of discarded feathers.
It has been known for Female sparrowhawks to drown their larger prey, such as magpies and wood pigeons, although I have never seen this.
In early July, I noticed that Victoria had begun to leave the nest along with David to hunt for the new family. I was spending more time watching the nest. I had spotted the white downy feathered chicks several times but couldn’t be sure how many were in the nest. Both parents spent most of the day hunting, and I could observe the nest for up to three hours a day after work in the early evening. For a few days, I could see the nest had four chicks. This worked out well for me, having named the parents after the ‘Beckhams” The chicks were named after their children, Brooklyn, Harper, Romeo and Cruz (OK, I had to look this up first!)
Taking a Break
Over the next month, I watched the chicks grow, and their white down turned into brown feathers with beautiful chestnut edges. The stripey patterns on their chest are very tightly barred together, and their greeny yellow eyes almost clash with the bright yellow legs.
Around the middle of August, Brooklyn and Romeo were noticeably more active and had begun to venture out of the nest. Their loud calling for their parents makes the nest easy to locate simply by following the sound.
A week or so later, Harper and Cruz were exploring out of the nest, and all four chicks were exercising their wings by flapping them. Observing them developing their balance as their tail feathers grew was fascinating. The wing beating is almost as vital as eating and sleeping in their lives now.
Just before the August bank holiday, Brooklyn fledged the nest. She was always close away but had ventured to the surrounding trees. On the bank holiday, Romeo fledged Sunday, followed by Harper about four hours later. Throughout this time, David and Victoria regularly returned to the nest with a constant food supply.
I had noted the majority were sparrows and bluetits, but I had seen two blackbirds before seeing Victoria arrive with a dove that provided a large meal for all four chicks. Cruz was the last to fledge on the bank holiday Monday afternoon. All the chicks still relied on their parents for food and would be for another four to six weeks.
Although today, Sparrowhawks are widespread, that hasn’t always been the case. Victorian landowners used to shoot them as “Trophies” for display in their taxidermy cabinets, while gamekeepers regularly shot them as pests. This reduced Sparrowhawk populations throughout the UK for many decades; in fact, only the reduction in Game shooting during the second world war saw Sparrowhawk numbers begin to recover.
Sadly, the recovery was short-lived as the widespread use of organochlorine pesticides (such as DDT) during the 1950s and 1960s caused sparrowhawks, among many other native species, a vast range of problems.
The organochlorine pesticides that had built up in the Sparrowhawk’s bodies by eating infected mammals and birds caused their eggshells to be thin, leading to cracking and splitting, rendering the eggs unviable. The Sparrowhawk population in the UK crashed throughout the 1950s, and they almost became locally extinct in the east of England, where DDT usage was at its highest.
The British Sparrowhawk population only began to recover after the organochlorine chemicals were banned in the early 1970s, following an outcry from the public in the UK and throughout much of the world. It took the East of England Sparrowhawks a whole decade to recover and breeding recommenced in the early 1980s.
Sparrowhawk Victoria A time for reflection now the family has fledged
Sparrowhawk numbers recovered throughout the 1980s to an estimated population of around 32,000 breeding pairs, but tragically, this recovery was also short-lived.
Sparrowhawk populations declined primarily due to the loss of habitat and food sources and another rise in persecution. This set about a further two decades of decline, with surveys showing breeding pairs dropping annually until 2008.
Some people were concerned that sparrowhawks predated many garden or songbirds, and they were associated mainly with the decline of the sparrow population. It’s worth noting that scientific studies have never supported this idea; in fact, they show the correlation between songbird and Sparrowhawk populations remains consistent with no long-term impact on songbird populations.
When the Sparrowhawk population was decimated by DDT in the 1950s and 1960s, songbird populations remained unchanged.
Small bird species, such as sparrows, tits and finches, typically rear between 5 and 15 chicks yearly. The reason these species rear so many young is an evolutionary adaption because, in the absence of predators, many of these chicks will not survive, primarily through starvation and disease. There simply wouldn’t be enough nest holes, caterpillars or habitats to support the massive increase in numbers.
Scientific studies by the BTO and others, over many years, indicate that to keep songbird populations stable, only two of these chicks need to survive. In our gardens, we can help by creating a diverse habitat of trees, hedges and shrubs. These provide both food and safe hiding and nesting places for songbirds.
Sparrowhawks now have very few natural predators in the UK. They are predated by Goshawks and Pine Marten, but these species no longer have a wide distribution area; there simply needs to be more to cause significant population problems.
The most common thing I’m asked is how you identify a Sparrowhawk because hawks and falcons look similar, particularly in flight.
For me, the species most often identified incorrectly isn’t, in fact, another hawk but the Cuckoo. Cuckoos have very similar colouring and are roughly the same size as a female Sparrowhawk. Cuckoos also fly in a very similar way to sparrowhawks. They are, of course, non-native, migrating to the UK from Africa to lay their eggs in the nest of others, leaving the chicks to be raised by them.
Goshawks have similar markings and share the woodland habitat. A male Goshawk is around the size of a female Sparrowhawk (around 37cm), whilst the male Sparrowhawk is noticeably smaller at about 30-33 cm. Goshawks hunt in dense woodland and don’t usually hunt in gardens.
Kestrels share a similar outline and profile. A Kestrel is around the size of a male Sparrowhawk. Kestrels sometimes feed in gardens but tend to be found over grass and heathland, hunting voles and small mammals. The most unambiguous indication is eye colour. Kestrels all have dark eyes.
So what about ‘the Peckhams’ – Well, I’m delighted to say that all four chicks fledged successfully.
They have flown away to establish their own territories, which can be several miles away. As is typical for male sparrowhawks, David has flown out from the territory and will spend the winter months alone, hunting when the weather allows. Victoria has stayed close to home and can regularly be seen throughout her territory. She still visits the garden occasionally but will not feed every day now; she will rely on her fat reserves to help her through the shorter, colder winter days.
David and Victoria both survived their first year. Once a Sparrowhawk makes it to adulthood, they have a survival rate of 69% and live, for an average of four years, according to the RSPB. In the spring,
I hope that David will return and that he and Victoria will breed and successfully raise their chicks again.
Further Reading
RSPB – Wildlife Guides – Sparrowhawks
The Wildlife Trusts – Sparrowhawk
BBC Wildlife Magazine – Seven facts about Sparrowhawks You need to know
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