Day off today after I had been to see a certain Mr Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame last night, so up slight ly later this morning.

On looking out of the window into the garden I could see the feeders were full of House Sparrows, and one or two Dunnocks on the ground, we seem to be lucky here as I know there are parts of the country where there are few or no House Sparrows at all.

Male House Sparrow

Even more scarce is the Tree Sparrow, easily identified by red-brown cap as opposed to the grey cap of the House Sparrow, and the white cheek with a square black patch.

I was just thinking of topping up the feeders and noticed they were not any birds on them so good time to go out and do it, only to notice there was a female Sparrow Hawk on the fence, I grabbed my camera on to have it fly off, so put my camera down and went upstairs only to see she was back sitting on the feeders, ran back down to get my camera and again she flew off. I managed to get a few shots of her last year but now she seems to be wise to me and the camera, so I shall use an image from February and fingers crossed I may catch her with the camera again soon.

Waiting for a meal

So here is an update, I managed to get a photo of the Sparrowhawk as it visited the garden for the third time and it turned out to be a Male,

Male Sparrowhawk

Which brings me back to the image of the Sparrowhawk in the first picture, within our local group this caused a bit of a debate, is the Sparrowhawk which visited my garden in February a female? I was convinced it was a juvenile male but others were thinking it was a female, so is my garden being visited by both Male and female Sparrowhawks? or is the February Sparrowhawk a male that has now matured in to the handsome  bird that is now visiting my new bird feeders?