Visitation

Just for a change I had a bit of a first this last week. It was Easter Monday morning, not too early but early enough for a Bank Holiday. I'd gone downstairs to put some coffee on (love my coffee machine) for breakfast and as I went into the kitchen glanced through the window into the garden.

Now we've a little bird feeding set up in the back garden, a rickety wooden bird table (well I did assemble it myself), a suspended feeder and water dish with which we hope to attract allsorts of exotic and unusual bird life, though normally we have to make do with starlings and sparrows with the odd appearance of greenfinches and the like.

However, on this particular morning the table was quiet and so too was the rest of the garden. Then, as I drew closer to the window, I could see why … on the middle of the lawn, hopping about with her attention centred on one little bush next to the right hand fence was a sparrowhawk. It looked a lot like she had lost some prey round the back or underneath the bush by the way she didn’t seem to notice me, and her movement from one side of the bush to the other. She may have been a mostly brown feathered creature, but the white stripe over her glaring yellow eye gave her something of an evil appearance, certainly not a bird to mess with.

I quietly moved back into the living room to get my mobile phone hoping to be able to get a photo of the unusual visitor. Once I’d located the phone and switched to camera mode I then went back into the kitchen – she was still there, but looking a little confused as whatever she thought there was under the bush was not making its presence know (can’t say I blame them really). I made it to the kitchen window, but just as I was lining up the shot she spied me and with a few beats of her wings was away at some great speed.

I went out into the garden, but could see no sign of the bird making its escape and nothing appeared to be under the bush either. So far I’ve not seen any return to our little garden of the sparrowhawk.