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At 4.15pm whilst I was having a coffee, I noticed white feathers floating across the road. The wind was from the south gusting from 25 to 35 kph with the occasional shower. Suddenly there was a brownish object diving at an angle of approx 45 degrees to the ground which I observed to be a hawk like bird. I rushed out side with my Nikon D70 with a Nikkor 70-300 lens attached as I had been photographing a Common sandpiper the day before. I approached the Sparrowhawk, which was in the gutter opposite, by hiding behind a bush and started to photograph it as it was on the ground on top of the Crested Pigeon as the photo shows. Eventually I got to 11m from the Sparrowhawk before it flew into an unoccupied neighbouring property where it had landed onto the ground under a tree where it was too dark to photograph it. Then it flew off across a road into another property where I could not see it but heard a noise which indicated that the goshawk had flown over the fence onto the road again which is where the second photo was taken. Light misty rain was falling as the Sparrowhawk again took off and landed 20m away down the drive under more bushes and finally took off over the back fence and I retreated out of the rain to my computer to download the shots. As can be seen the Crested pigeon was still alive . The Sparrowhawk had landed on the winded Crested Pigeon after the first strike and hooked its talons onto the pigeon's wings.

A large group of Crested Pigeons frequent the area and commonly perch on the power lines that run on the front of our property, roosting at night in a large cypress tree over the road. There are frequent alarm calls from New Holland Honeyeaters on most days as Little Falcons and Brown Hawks fly by with little piles of feathers seen now and then.

I now need a strategy to convince the management that a more powerful lens is required.

Juvenile female Collared Sparrowhawk

Photos and story by Peter McEntee

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Waiting on interesting information, sightings, pictures etc on any of our Raptor species from you our members.

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