Friday, 17 January 2020

Friday 17th January 2020

Bingley

I came out of my house this morning and noticed a large bird on the ground further up the road near the old College.  I grabbed my camera as the bird proved to be a large female Sparrowhawk sitting on a pigeon.  It was not eating but kept looking left and right at a crowd of Magpies, Jackdaws and Blackbirds that were vocally alarmed by it's presence.  After a few minutes a vehicle came down the road and the Sparrowhawk took flight, surprisingly followed by the pigeon.  Another Sparrowhawk had done something very similar a few months ago, again with a pigeon, almost directly outside the house. That pigeon did not survive the encounter.  Unluckily, I was informed by my wife of that one and totally missed it myself.                                                                            Photo and sighting by Phil Matthews