What does a baby hawk look like? Birds of prey at home. Feeding birds of prey
Have you ever seen a flock of crows noisily and quickly chasing a small bird, no larger than the crows or jackdaws themselves? The bird that is trying to escape from its pursuers is a sparrowhawk. In the autumn, when the hawks begin their migration period, their flocks can be quite large even within the city. You can recognize these birds by their slender and graceful figure, elongated tail, which extends back.
The hawk is not afraid of disturbances in a flock of birds, leaving them leisurely, often changing the flight vector, turning over in the air. Sometimes, even grabbing someone from those catching up, which causes some panic and chaos. The sparrowhawk usually feeds on small birds. Males, which are not particularly large in size, can catch goldfinches, kinglets, sparrows and other small birds, while larger females are content with pigeons, starlings, etc.
Hunting methods
The sparrowhawk catches its prey after hiding in bushes or on tree branches. He waits until the victim comes into view, and then briskly and quickly pounces on it. Often, a bird of prey flies very low above the surface of the earth, nimbly maneuvering next to tree trunks and branches. This allows him to catch up with birds for quite a long time. A hawk can equally successfully catch prey both in flight and those victims that sit quietly on the ground or branches. The flight of the sparrowhawk is very fast and silent, thanks to which the bird sneaks up on living creatures so that they do not have time to notice the danger. A predator can even catch a sparrow near a transport stop or tits sitting peacefully at a feeder.As usual, the hawk plucks the caught prey, sometimes without even killing it, but if at that moment something disturbs it, the predator will leave the unfortunate victim. Usually this bird settles down with its prey on a small hill, and as a result, feathers, bones, beak, claws and a bird’s skull are left at the place of the meal.
When a hawk hunts for a variety of small animals and birds, it can sometimes become the victim of a larger and more dangerous predator. At night it is attacked by martens, and in the daytime by another species of hawk - the goshawk.
Features of behavior
This predator is quite cautious and silent. It flies freely and quietly between bushes and trees or right near the surface of the earth, near houses and buildings. Sometimes you can hear his short sharp cry of “ki-kik-ki”. When hawks begin their breeding season, they begin to scream more often. The sparrowhawk's visual acuity is excellent: its eyes are large, directed straight forward, and this allows for a greater breadth of vision.
For nesting, the hawk usually chooses forest edges, small groves, and forest belts. In mountainous places, it can build nests at an altitude of up to 2 km, but certainly in the forest zone. During cold periods and winter it can be found in parks or forest areas of the city. Hawk habitat: European part from England to Spain, western part of Siberia, Central Asia, Africa, Crimea.
Nesting grounds
Sparrowhawks become ready to breed by the age of one year or a little earlier. Birds use nests once erected for several years. A pair may also have several nesting boxes, which can be used alternately in different time. The nest is a small, loose and slightly chaotic structure made of tree branches. The nest tray is quite deep, because the edges of the building are raised upward; the hawk constructs the lining from thin branches and tree needles. Often the nest is located in a spruce or pine fork, not so often - on aspen or birch trees, at a height of up to 8 meters.
The female and male work together to build the nest. The hawk lays eggs quite late, closer to the beginning of May. The clutch contains on average about 5-6 eggs, which have a matte white hue, covered with spots and specks of a dark brown color. If due to some factors the clutch dies, then the female is forced to lay future offspring again. Hatching takes a little more than one month.
Breeding offspring
The incubation process begins from the moment the first egg appears, therefore, all offspring are of different ages. They hatch into the world closer to the first half of July, and until the age of ten days, each chick needs heating. During this period, the female cannot hunt, so this responsibility is assigned to the male. If during the time the female warms the chicks she dies, then the hawk will still continue to bring food to the nest, but it does not know how to feed the offspring. Therefore, if small hawks already know how to tear meat and feed on their own, they survive; otherwise, they die.
As soon as the chicks’ thermoregulation process returns to normal, the female also begins to fly out of the nest to hunt. The offspring need a lot of food, as they need an energy source for proper development. Therefore, sparrowhawks try to catch as much prey as possible than during non-breeding times. At the same time, both the female and the male try to leave the nesting area for at least 5-6 kilometers.
Pre-migration period
A month later, when the chicks are already growing up, but do not have fully formed tail feathers and flight feathers, they can already crawl out of the nest and settle down in close proximity to it. Only at the age of five weeks do the chicks begin to learn to fly. Females develop faster than males. After another couple of weeks, the offspring are already flying away from their native nest, already able to pursue and catch prey. At the end of nesting, adults begin to molt: the process begins with the feathers located on the wings and ends with the covert feathers. The entire process takes on average two to three months. Towards the beginning of autumn, until October, birds living in the northern part begin migrating to southern countries. On average, during migration, a hawk can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour.
Interesting facts
Sparrowhawks have a kind of independent and internal regulation of population size. A similar phenomenon occurs in many other species. birds of prey. At times when there is not enough food and prey for birds, the male and female feed only 1-2 chicks. The remaining, smaller chicks do not have enough food, so they die in the first few days.Also, the sparrowhawk has poor taming ability, so they are almost never used to participate in falconry. The famous prose writer A. Green was once able to breed and tame a hawk chick, to which he gave the name Gul-Gul. The domesticated predator never managed to learn how to catch prey, so it died quite quickly after it was released into the wild. This chick became the prototype that participated in the work “Touchable,” which was never completed, and in the story called “The Story of a Hawk.”
Video: Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)
The sparrowhawk (Aceipiter nisus) is considered a typical bird of the hawk family. Its length is 32 cm, wingspan 64, wing length 20, tail length 15 cm. The much larger female is 8-9 cm longer and 12-15 cm larger in wingspan. In old birds the entire upper side is blackish-ash-grey, the underside is white with rusty-red wavy lines and rusty-red rod streaks; tail with 5-6 black transverse stripes and a white border at the end. The beak is blue, the wax is yellow, the iris is golden yellow, the legs are pale yellow.
In Europe the sparrowhawk appears to be found everywhere, and in most of Central Asia it is probably a resident bird. Lives in forests of all kinds, most likely in groves that are located in mountainous countries. But it is not at all afraid of humans; on the contrary, it willingly settles in close proximity to villages and cities. At least he visits them in autumn and winter, hunts even in small gardens inside large cities, appears every day, if he has once managed to get prey here, at certain hours, and sometimes does not even bother to carry away the prey, but eats it in a secluded place. location in close proximity to residential buildings.
Sparrowhawk hides most of the day and appears only when it wants to hunt. Despite its short wings, it flies easily, quickly and very deftly; On the contrary, he walks bouncing and awkwardly. It is timid of humans, but bold and fearless towards larger birds. Bechstein attributes greater courage to the male, Naumann to the female, but both are mistaken: both the male and the female are equally brave. True, the female is stronger and can successfully withstand a battle in which the male would be defeated. Bechstein once saw a remarkable sight in front of the window. A female sparrowhawk caught a sparrow and carried it over the garden fence, barely 10 paces from its home, to eat it there. He noticed this from the window and did not interfere. When the sparrowhawk was not even halfway done, the crow flew in to take the prey from him. The sparrowhawk spread its wings and covered its prey with them. But after the crow rushed at him several times, he took off, holding the sparrow in one paw, deftly turned in flight so that his back was almost facing the ground, and grabbed the crow so tightly with his free paw by the chest that she was forced to fly away. But the male also displays the same insolence as the female, and, like her, appears in the villages.
The sparrowhawk combines audacity with remarkable presence of mind and cunning. If a sparrowhawk is excited by nearby prey, it forgets everything around it and pays no attention to people, dogs or cats. It grabs and carries away the intended prey near the observer, rushes with a whistle just above the head of a sitting person, so that it almost touches him with its wings, grabs the victim without missing a beat and disappears with it before you have time to properly come to your senses. For a hunter who shoots small birds, he often carries away the shot game.
The sparrowhawk is the most terrible enemy of small birds, but it is not at all rare that it dares to attack larger ones. From the gray partridge to the wren, not a single bird seems to be protected from its attacks; He also does not neglect small mammals. The courage of the sparrowhawk is sometimes truly unprecedented. It happened to be observed that he attacked domestic roosters, and more than once he was seen to rush at hares. However, it seems that he only wanted to scare these timid animals as a joke.
“My father,” Reikhenov writes to me, “once hunted a gray partridge, without using a dog, gunpowder or lead. At a distance of about 100 steps, a flock of partridges rose up, and almost at the same time a sparrowhawk rushed into the middle of the tightly crowded flock - female. With a partridge in its paws, the sparrowhawk headed to a nearby boundary and finished off its prey. My father calmly waited until the sparrowhawk killed the partridge, and crept up, hiding behind the slope of the boundary, at a fairly close distance to the place where the sparrowhawk should have been sitting. a stone and with a cry threw it at the predator; with this he frightened the sparrowhawk so much that he left the partridge and flew away. I myself once in Wetzlar prevented a female sparrowhawk from grabbing a pigeon, which he had already caught up with a loud cry.” The sparrowhawk, of course, has no lack of courage and rapacity in order to rush at every game that he expects to somehow overcome: he dares to attack, apparently aimlessly, even on animals that can defend themselves well. If we assume that those sparrowhawks that rush at larger mammals only want to scare them, then we still have to think that the sparrowhawk attacks smaller ones, up to the size of a squirrel, only to eat them. Müller watched for a long time, hiding, the sparrowhawk, which repeated its attacks on the squirrel, and it was in mortal danger. For small birds, namely finches, sparrows, tits, starlings and thrushes, the sparrowhawk is dangerous because it always takes them by surprise and makes rescue almost impossible, it catches flying birds just as well as sitting ones, and during the hunt it even flies after the frightened one. prey.
All small birds they know and are very afraid of their most terrible enemy. Some do this with considerable intelligence. They describe close circles around branches and trunks, and the sparrowhawk, despite its agility, cannot follow them so quickly; thanks to this, they are slightly ahead of him and, with the speed of lightning, rush into the dense bush. Others, when a predator appears, rush to the ground, press themselves against it, lie motionless and often go unnoticed; in short, everyone is trying their best to save themselves. The most agile of the small birds pursue the villain with a loud cry and thereby draw the attention of other birds to him, who become cautious. Especially barn swallows often spoil his hunt, and he knows well how much harm they cause him; if they approach him, he soars into the air, describes, soaring, several circles and then flies away towards the forest, probably with strong anger in his heart that the annoying birds are so fast. When attacking, he often misses; but, if he’s lucky, he grabs two birds at once. It takes the caught prey to a secluded place, pulls out its large feathers and then, slowly, eats it. He throws back bones, feathers and hair in the form of pellets. Young birds that have not yet flown out of the nest and that hatch on the ground are among the sparrowhawk's favorite food, but it does not spare eggs.
The sparrowhawk's nest is located in thickets or young forests, rarely high above the ground; it is, if possible, well hidden and placed, if possible, on coniferous trees close to the trunk. He loves areas where fields and forest alternate with each other. Here he chooses a thicket or young forest to build a nest, located, if possible, close to fields or even villages. If a sparrowhawk has once taken the trouble to build a nest, it hatches chicks in it year after year, and if its eggs are stolen in the spring, it lays them twice in one year. Between May 10 and June 20, 3-5 not very large, rather smooth eggs are found in the nest various shapes and colors, with a thick shell. The female incubates alone, sits very diligently and displays extreme love for the eggs, does not leave them even if she is disturbed several times, and tries with all her might to defend them during attacks. Both parents bring food to the chicks in abundance; however, only the female knows how to properly tear it to pieces. It was observed that young sparrowhawks, whose mother was killed, died of hunger with abundant food, since the father did not know how to prepare it so that they could eat it. After departure, the parents feed the chicks, guide and teach them for a long time.
The larger noble birds do not hesitate to eat the sparrowhawk if they can get hold of it; the smaller birds show their hatred at least by chasing him. Man is the enemy of this predator wherever he meets him. Among many Asian peoples, the sparrowhawk is highly valued as a game bird and therefore has many friends. In the southern Urals it is used for hunting more than any of the hawks, but mainly only for hunting quails. In the summer, the chicks are fed, trained, used for hunting in the fall, and then released. They should not be fed during the winter, since in the spring you can get as many young ones as you need. Only larger females are fed for hunting; small males are released into the wild, as they are not suitable for hunting. Just like in the Urals, sparrowhawks are also raised in Persia and India and used with great success. Sparrow hunting is one of the favorite summer pleasures in Persia, when the weather is too hot for strenuous hunting. Small prey is flushed mainly near irrigation ditches and abandoned by the hawk before the flying birds reach a safe haven. The sparrowhawk rarely misses and pursues sparrows with such zeal even in mouse holes and other hiding places that it is often difficult to get him back out of there, and thus it happens that valuable birds of prey are lost. A good sparrowhawk catches 15-20 sparrows per hour. His understanding is amazing. Within a week after being caught, the sparrowhawk can be used for hunting, albeit tied to a long cord. It is enough to deal with it for a few days to tame it so much that it returns to its owner even without a rope. Females are used primarily for quail hunting. The sparrowhawk is highly valued by all Indian hunters. Often caught in raptor nets and trained for partridges, quails, snipes, pigeons and especially maine. They provide good services especially in the jungle and reward the work put into training them.
Anyone who has kept a sparrowhawk in captivity must recognize the art of Asian hunters. These birds of prey are not pleasant captives; their timidity, savagery and gluttony are simply disgusting. Lenz gives an example of gluttony, which I want to point out in conclusion, since it characterizes the character of the bird. “Several years ago I took out a female sparrowhawk who was so furiously pursuing a bunting in a thorny bush that she got entangled in it and was caught. I immediately tied the ends of her wings and put her in a room where 11 people had gathered, at whom she looked with sparkling eyes I brought six young sparrows and released one of them on the floor, the sparrow ran, and the sparrowhawk immediately rushed at him, grabbed him, strangled him with his claws and sat on his prey, which he squeezed tightly, looking intently at the company. we were eaten, then we left, and when we returned 10 minutes later, the sparrow was eaten. The same happened to the next two sparrows; but the fourth one, which he strangled as violently as the rest, was only half eaten when we returned. ", giving him, as always, 10 minutes to eat. However, he just as greedily grabbed the fifth and again after 10 minutes the sixth, although he could not eat them, since his goiter was full."
- a relatively small feathered predator. Hawks nesting in Central and Southern Europe remain at home for the winter. Those who live on the northern edge of the continent fly to South Africa for the winter.
The unpretentious sparrowhawk finds refuge in the most different places. It can be found in valleys and high in the mountains (up to the upper border of the forest), but most often it settles down to live in groves and forest edges adjacent to fields, meadows, gardens and rural estates, choosing young coniferous stands for its nest. Sometimes hawks also settle in deciduous groves overgrown with shrubs along the edges of fields, as well as in vast city parks and forested areas.
Habitat. All of Europe except Iceland and the northern tip of Scandinavia, as well as Asia and North Africa.
Species: Sparrowhawk – Accipiter nisus.
Family: Accipitridae.
Order: Diurnal birds of prey.
Class: Birds.
Subphylum: Vertebrates.
Security.
Massive use of plant protection products in the 60s. led to a catastrophic decline in the number of sparrowhawks. After a ban on the use of the most toxic herbicides was introduced in Central Europe, the population of these predators has increased significantly. In some European countries, the sparrowhawk is protected by law.
Reproduction.
Sparrowhawks are among the birds that produce only one brood per year. The couple annually builds a new nest on a young tree, choosing a place where the branches grow together with the trunk. In the midst mating games the birds call to each other with a characteristic crying cry. At the end of April - beginning of May, the female lays 4-6 white eggs with brown spots. A few days before the first egg is laid, the male begins to feed his wife and diligently supplies her with food throughout the incubation period. The female only allows herself to leave the nest for a couple of minutes and goes to the “kitchen”, where she receives carefully plucked prey from the male. After 33-36 days, the eggs hatch into chicks covered with white down, which remain in the nest for about a month. All this time, the female is inseparably with the babies - warms them, covers them from the sun and rain, and in case of danger bravely protects them from the enemy. In the first days of the chicks' life, the father brings already plucked prey to the nest and gives it to the mother, who divides the offering and feeds the chicks. As soon as the babies grow up a little, the male begins to transfer the prey to his girlfriend in flight, without approaching the nest. If trouble happens to the mother during this period, the young will inevitably die of hunger, since the father will be able to get plenty of game, but will not be able to feed the chicks. Two weeks after the chick emerges, the female also flies out to hunt. From this moment on, the parents no longer tear the prey apart, but throw it entirely into the nest, leaving the chicks to deal with it on their own. On the 35th day, grown-up children fly up to their parents when they bring food.
Lifestyle.
The sparrowhawk's main prey is small birds: sparrows, finches, larks, titmice and thrushes, although female sparrowhawks sometimes attack pigeons. It is very difficult to see a predator in time, since it likes to attack from an ambush, but at the sight of an enemy, small birds immediately raise an alarming hubbub and rush in all directions. Having spotted the prey, the sparrowhawk breaks away from its sheltered perch and rushes towards the target in a low-level flight. In pursuit of prey, the hawk is agile and agile, as befits an air ace. An attack, as a rule, is fleeting, because maneuverable flight requires enormous energy expenditure. If the prey escapes the first strike, the hawk loses interest in it and again hides in the shelter, and if the hunt is successful, it takes the victim to a secluded corner, where, before eating, it methodically plucks it. The tendency to aerial “recklessness” often turns out to be disastrous for the sparrowhawk, especially during wintering in the city. Carried away by the chase, hawks often crash into wires or break into window panes. You can track a sparrowhawk in flight for only an insignificant fraction of a second.
Did you know?
- Sparrowhawk playing important role in regulating populations of urban and tree sparrows.
- In the past, there was a belief that the cuckoo turned into a hawk for the winter. Since all cuckoos fly to Africa for the winter, hawks wintering in Europe were often mistaken for cuckoos due to their similar coloration.
- Sometimes a hawk attacks birds in a cage standing on a windowsill, without seeing the window glass. Since the predator rushes into battle without looking back, such an attack often ends in its death.
- From 50 to 70% of young sparrowhawks die in the first year of life, becoming victims of winter frosts and injuries. Many become prey for large hawks.
- During incubation of the clutch, the female completely changes her plumage. Males, who have to feed the family, molt later and change their flight feathers gradually.
Sparrowhawk – Accipiter nisus.
Length: 30-40 cm.
Weight: 150-300 g.
Wingspan: 60-80 cm.
Number of eggs in a clutch: 4-6.
Incubation period: 33-36 days.
Diet: Mainly passerine birds.
Life expectancy: up to 15 years.
Structure.
Plumage. The ventral side is whitish with brown transverse stripes. An adult male has a bluish-gray back, with ocher stripes on the abdomen. The female's dorsal side is brown, and the stripes on the abdomen are darker.
Wings. The wings are rather short and wide, with rounded ends.
Eyes. The iris of the eyes is orange-yellow. Excellent vision allows the hawk to look out for prey from afar.
Tail. The tail is long, cut at a right angle.
Beak. The sharp yellow beak is hooked and well adapted for plucking and tearing the body of prey.
Paws. The tarsus of the long yellow legs are covered with feathers. The fingers are armed with sharp claws.
Related species.
Hawks belong to the accipitridae family. Buzzards, kites and vultures of the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa), as well as eagles, harriers, ospreys and hawks. This is the largest family of raptors. There are 50 species of hawks living in forests and woodlands around the world.
It is believed that the generic name “hawks” is composed of two Proto-Slavic roots – “str” (speed) and “rebъ” (motley/pockmarked). Thus, the name of the bird reflects the variegated pattern of the chest plumage and the ability to quickly capture prey.
Description of the hawk
True hawks (Accipiter) are a genus of birds of prey from the hawk family (Accipitridae). They are not too large for daytime predators - even the largest representative of the genus, the goshawk, does not exceed 0.7 m in length and weighs about 1.5 kg. Another common species, the sparrowhawk, grows to only 0.3–0.4 m and weighs 0.4 kg.
Appearance
The appearance, like the anatomy of a hawk, is determined by the terrain and lifestyle. The predator has excellent vision, 8 times greater in acuity than humans. The hawk's brain receives a binocular (three-dimensional) image due to the special location of the eyes - not on the sides of the head, but somewhat closer to the beak.
The eyes of adult birds are yellow/yellow-orange, sometimes with a tinge of red or reddish-brown (tyuvik). In some species, the iris becomes slightly lighter with age. The hawk is armed with a strong hooked beak with characteristic feature– absence of a tooth on top of the beak.
This is interesting! The hawk hears perfectly, but distinguishes smells not so much with the nostrils, but... with the mouth. If you give a bird stale meat, it will most likely grab it with its beak, but then certainly throw it away.
The lower legs are usually feathered, but the toes and tarsus are not feathered. The legs are distinguished by powerful muscles. The wings are relatively short and blunt, the tail (wide and long) is usually rounded or straight cut. The color of the top of most species is darker than the bottom: these are gray or brown tones. The general light background of the lower part (white, yellowish or light ocher) is always diluted with transverse/longitudinal ripples.
Character and lifestyle
The hawk lives in the thicket of the forest and builds a nest on the highest tree in order to observe its hunting grounds with an area of approximately 100-150 km². This forest hunter deftly maneuvers in dense crowns, turning vertically/horizontally, suddenly stopping and taking off sharply, and also making unexpected attacks towards victims. The bird's compact body size and wing shape help in this.
A hawk, unlike an eagle, does not soar in the sky, looking for living creatures for a long time, but unexpectedly attacks any (running, standing or flying) object, lying in wait from an ambush. Having grabbed it, the predator squeezes it tightly with its paws and digs in with its claws, stabbing and suffocating at the same time. The hawk devours its prey whole, complete with fur/feathers and bones.
If a abrupt “ki-ki-ki” or a drawn-out “ki-i-i, ki-i-i” comes from the forest, then you heard the vocal part of a hawk. Much more melodic sounds, similar to the sound of a flute, are produced by song hawks. Once a year (usually after breeding), hawks, like all birds of prey, molt. Sometimes the molt drags on for a couple of years.
How long do hawks live?
Ornithologists are confident that in the wild hawks can live up to 12–17 years. In the forests of North America, hummingbirds like to settle under hawk nests to escape their natural enemies, squirrels and jays. Such fearlessness is easily explained - hawks hunt squirrels, but are completely indifferent to hummingbirds.
Classification, types
The genus of hawks includes 47 species, the most common of which is called Accepiter gentills, the goshawk. Birds of the Eastern Hemisphere fly to Asia for the winter, and birds of the Western Hemisphere fly to Mexico. The goshawk is prone to a sedentary lifestyle, but avoids settling in large forest areas. In flight, the bird exhibits a wave-like trajectory.
Accipiter nisus (sparrowhawk) is represented by six subspecies, ranging from Western Europe and North Africa east to the Pacific Ocean. The highest population density in Europe is found in Russia and Scandinavia. Nests lined with leaves and soft moss are built on coniferous trees, most often on spruce trees. Every year the pair builds a new nest. The sparrowhawk is an excellent hunter, requiring a varied landscape with a wide variety of small birds.
This is interesting! Popular in the Caucasus/Crimea autumn hunting on quails with hunting hawks, which are caught, tamed and trained over several days. Once the hunting season is over, the sparrowhawks are released.
The Sparrowhawk can be recognized by its prominent black plumage with transverse white lines on its belly.
Range, habitats
The genus Accipiter (true hawks) has taken root in all corners of the globe, excluding the Arctic. They are found almost throughout Eurasia, from the forest-tundra in the north to the southern points of the continent. Hawks have adapted to the climate of Africa and Australia, Northern and South America, Philippines, Indonesia and Tasmania, as well as Ceylon, Madagascar and other islands.
Birds inhabit savannas, tropical jungles, deciduous and coniferous forests, plains and mountains. They prefer not to go deep into the thicket, choosing open light edges, coastal forests and woodlands. Selected species learned to live even in open landscapes. Hawks from temperate latitudes are adherents of sedentary behavior, and birds from northern regions fly to southern countries for the winter.
Diet of hawks
The greatest gastronomic interest for them are birds (medium and small), but if necessary, hawks eat small mammals, amphibians (toads and frogs), snakes, lizards, insects and fish. The predominant part of the menu consists of small birds (mostly from the passerine family):
- buntings, sparrows and lentils;
- finches,
Have you ever seen how crows or small birds chase in the air a small bird of prey, noticeably smaller in size than the crows following on its heels?
In such encounters, most often the predator forced to flee turns out to be a sparrowhawk. This small hawk often appears, especially in the fall, during the migration period, even in large cities. It is easy to recognize by its small size, slender body, long tail widened towards the end and short wide wings.
The light chest and belly of adult birds are covered with narrow transverse stripes. The length of males is about 33 cm, the wingspan is about 63 cm, the body weight is 150 g. The female is slightly larger, respectively 39 cm. 74 cm and weight 250 g.
In behavior, methods of obtaining and eating food, the sparrowhawk has many similarities with the goshawk. This hawk is a pronounced ornithophage, and birds make up the lion's share of its prey. Only if the goshawk mainly catches medium-sized birds, weighing 300-500 g, then the sparrowhawk catches mainly small birds, the size of a sparrow or a little larger. Larger birds become its victims much less often.
The largest prey that the female of this predator was once able to defeat were pheasant and mallard duck - birds that are 4 times larger in mass than a hawk! It is believed that more large birds Only females attack, but I was able to see how a small male sparrowhawk boldly pursued a rock pigeon that was twice his size. And although that time the pigeon managed to break away from its pursuer, going in circles into the heights, there is no doubt that if it had been overtaken, the hawk would have defeated it.
But the lapwing was unlucky. I once saw a male sparrowhawk rush from above at this large sandpiper, weighing about 200 g, and, grabbing it, landed near a marshy bush. And when about two hours later I went to check how much meat this small predator could eat, and what was left of the lapwing, I saw that the hawk had dragged its prey into the forest, which was at least 150 m away in a straight line.
The path of the bird flying with prey was indicated by feathers dropped from time to time by the lapwing. This happened at the beginning of May, probably the first eggs appeared in the sparrowhawk nest, and the female was already incubating them, otherwise the hawk would not have laid such a bird. big catch so far.
The sparrowhawk hunts, flying low over the ground and, deftly maneuvering between bushes and trees, rushes at the prey, suddenly appearing above it. Sometimes it hides in the thickets and waits for potential prey to appear nearby. In a word, he takes advantage of any opportunity to attack the victim.
Most often, small birds, which are the most numerous in the area, suffer from the sparrowhawk. Sometimes this predator seems to be herding a flock of birds, regularly appearing where they feed or rest. One autumn, and it was in the Tver region, large flocks of starlings and barn swallows began to gather in the coastal reed thickets for the night.
Soon sparrowhawks also appeared here, and every evening they began to take blood rent from these flocks. The predators waited until the whole flock had settled down in the reeds, flew into the thickets and returned almost immediately, carrying their next victim in their claws. At the same time, they didn’t even create a big commotion in the pack.
According to observations in Pechora, during the spring migration of birds, local sparrowhawks initially fed almost exclusively on snow buntings, which was clearly visible from the piles of feathers of eaten birds. And when flocks of snow buntings flew further north, predators switched to horned larks, migratory flocks of which appeared here a little later.
One can only be surprised to see how the hawk deftly grabs sparrows, sometimes a few steps from the passengers waiting for the bus.
Hawks tend to pluck prey before killing it, and I have been convinced of this more than once. Once I saw how a sparrowhawk deftly grabbed a flying magpie and immediately landed with it behind a scattering of stones. Soon, feathers torn out by the predator began to fly out from behind the stones. After waiting about fifteen minutes, I decided to get closer and see how the predator was feasting, but the cautious hawk, either hearing or seeing me, abandoned the prey and darted to the side.
The magpie also took off and, having flown quite a bit, landed in a bush. She looked thoroughly shabby, and there was blood on her head. And in the place where the birds had just flown away, there were a lot of black and white magpie feathers left.
Once, long before this incident, I caught a fieldfare thrush in the forest, which was almost completely plucked. He could not fly because there were no feathers left in his wings, and his tail was also torn out. He looked like a plucked chicken from a store, but he was alive and jumped quite cheerfully.
Dark marks left by the hawk's beak were visible on the bluish body. Apparently, someone startled the hawk when he was almost completely finished plucking the thrush.
At the site of eating prey, the sparrowhawk leaves characteristic traces, similar to those that can be seen in the places where goshawks eat, but only on a reduced scale, in the form of a compact pile of feathers from all parts of the bird’s body. The sparrowhawk loves to pinch and eat prey, sitting on some perch, trunk or stump; less often, it plucks birds directly on the ground or snow.
Left paw print of a sparrowhawk in the snow and the underside of a male's paw
Usually you notice piles of plucked feathers quite far away. It eats small birds, like tap dancers, plucking them off with almost no residue; from larger birds, such as crossbills, sometimes leaving the stomach or paw, but most often the beak and the front part of the skull.
Like the goshawk, to the side of the victim’s feathers you can often see a white strip of droppings with an area of about 7x2.5 cm. The larger the bird eaten, the more bone remains remain at the site of the feathered predator’s feast.
Blackbirds quite often become victims of hawks - both goshawk and sparrowhawk. But if after a goshawk in a pile of thrush feathers you can, at best, find a beak or a paw, then in the place where a sparrowhawk feasted, you often find the front part of the head, paws, bones of the shoulder girdle with a damaged beak of a predator keel, and other fragments of bones with remains uneaten meat on them.
The food requirement of this hawk is 80-120 g per day, i.e. 2-3 birds the size of a sparrow for a male and 3-4 for a female. Having eaten enough, the hawk pecks meat from the bones less cleanly. Sparrowhawk pellets are rarely found. But sometimes you find them near the remains of eaten prey. The average size of a pellet is 3.6 x 1.8 cm. They contain small feathers of small birds, sometimes scraps of wool and bones.
Occasionally, the sparrowhawk catches mice and voles; there is a known case of its attack on a ground squirrel. At the site where the small rodent was eaten, small shreds of plucked fur remain. Despite the fact that the sparrowhawk sometimes eats prey directly in the snow, clear paw prints of this predator are rarely seen. Unlike the goshawk and some other birds of prey, it does not like to walk on the ground. He only sits down to grab prey or eat it, sitting in one place. The size of the sparrowhawk's paw print is 6.7 x 3.4 cm in the male and somewhat larger in the female. The width of a pair of legs of a bird sitting on the snow is about 11 cm.
The sparrowhawk most often nests on coniferous trees, building a small nest near the trunk itself on a branch extending from it. The nests are located approximately half a tree high. At the end of the nesting period or shortly after the chicks have fledged, rare white fluff of the chicks can be seen near the nest and on the branches. Under the nest, at a distance of up to 3 m from the trunk, the grass and soil are splashed with hawk droppings, but I did not find any remains of food or pellets under any of the nests. But away from the nests, it is sometimes possible to find places where adult birds plucked prey before feeding it to the chicks. Sparrowhawks bring food by holding it in their paws.
Hunting for various birds and animals, sparrowhawks sometimes themselves become victims of predators. I have found the remains of sparrowhawks eaten by goshawks, and the chewed wings of hawks caught by martens. Apparently, the marten caught birds sleeping in the trees at night.