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14-04-2004, 08:03 PM

In article ,
says...

Then there were raptorial problems when two pairs of Buzzards moved in;
and remained. They breed every year but four remain ~~possibly not the same
individuals.
Not a single songbird remains. Even minute Wrens were pulled out of the
Ivy covered banks. They were so brazen that my wife was attacked till she
released a Fantail Dove she was protecting. All forty doves were taken in
four weeks.

It made me cross once when my mail to that group doing the sparrow
survey was poo-poohed. At my last home we had a little group of 6
sparrows that would briefly fly in and out of the garden. Then when we
read about their decline we decided to see what we could do so started
buying the recommended foods to supplement their insects, and grew a
ceanothus because the thick growth would give them cover.

Anyway those six had two broods in the final year, making over 50 at one
count in our garden. The last of the young were just losing their
yellow beaky bits when a sparrow hawk suddenly appeared for the first
time ever seen in our garden.

All the sparrows flew up into the ceanothus and the hawk started
crashing into it trying to dislodge them. Well so much for books that
say they use stealth and sneak up on them as they fly from tree to tree.

He wasn't even bothering to eat them and there were perfectly untouched
little bodies under the tree where they'd simply died of a heart attack
of something. We never saw another sparrow in that garden so we'd even
lost the long-term original six.

When I told the sparrow survey about this they said sparrow hawks don't
do this. I think they've already made up their mind it's a habitat
thing, so why bother with the questionnaires?