If I never see so much as one starling for the rest of this year, my bird of the day more than makes up for it....

I was doing some homework when I heard an almighty racket coming from the car park so I opened my blinds to see a beautiful male Sparrowhawk on his prey. Half a dozen adult blackbirds where challenging the hawk to give up its (very dead) prize. I grabbed my video camera and got a few seconds of very dodgy footage before the sparrwhawk stumbled under the conifer bushes with his prize. Time to grab the 350D

I snuck round the corner where there's a very handy view of the front garden and the blackbirds where still going nuts so I figured I could get round to the front without making the hawk drop his food (he's hunting a lot at the moment so probably has chicks to feed and I would have felt awful if they lost a meal because I made one stupid mistake).

I snuck round to the front garden where I found him eating his meal in the undergrowth so I sat and watched him take his fill, while I was snapping away (it was extremely windy so those photo's didn't come out well). I hid practically iniside the conifer for a good 20 minutes, and then I was rewarded with this....



He's actually on a trailer about 10 feet away from me. I thought once he heard the camera fire off he'd get spooked, but no he was actually very calm.

**sigh** Getting back to homework is so mundane after that! haha.