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Awww poor Blackbird I would be upset if one of my birds that comes to visit got picked off. I am surprised I haven't seen it happen as we have quite a few sparrow hawks around here due to the nature reserve.

I'm quite surprised myself Lynn, as this is a very enclosed area at the side of my house, right next to the big hedge and the feeders are sort of half tucket into the hedge (got to think "edge of wood" when placing bird feeders!). I really wouldn't have thought a bird of prey would have wanted to come into such a small enclosed area, I thought they were more for wide open spaces? It was a female blackbird too, I hope she wasn't pregnant, awwww, poor little bird. I bet she had a mate too coz I seem to have the same numbers of each of everything. I'm going to have to do something in the morning when I take the food out there I think.

A few years back I had a sparrow hawk come and sit on the hedge outside the house and I went out and took a look as I had never seen one before. He stayed for quite a while and let me take a look he was a beautiful colour I checked him in my bird spotting book.
They are around but never had one that close again.

I'm going to have to check out the RSPB website and see exactly what this bird was. It was very, very small compared to the falcon I've had in the garden before. It was a dark dirty brown colour and very skinny, dirty looking bird, sort of tall and thin, not big and round like the falcons. I must check out what it was exactly.

Sparrowhawks often use my garden as a cafe and kill pidgeons etc-fascinating to watch!

Well, the bird feeders weren't as busy as normal around the side, but the front table had hundreds of them, word had obviously got around. One thing I did notice though, when some of the greenfinches, and a female blackbird decided to risk the feeders at the side, one of the male blackbirds just sat on the fence sort of "on guard" looking up in the sky and everywhere! So they do realise then don't they if he did that, coz I've never seen them sitting on lookout prior to this. No more birds of prey today though thank goodness.