Sparrow Hawk is back.

[bearded bloke]

I have a sparrowhawk that regularly visits my garden, often seen perching on the trellis that Mrs.BB grows clematis on, it does a brilliant job of keeping the flying rats at bay

[Gillykat]

Moving away from that aspect of the discussion( and perhaps we should).....humankind as a whole is making survival difficult for wildlife to maintain a grip in so many places.
Perhaps we should reflect on that aspect for a while?

Well said! Nature has her own balance and a predator will never take more prey than it needs to survive....if it killed, as some humans do, just for the fun of it then they prey would soon disappear and the predator would starve to death.

Sadly I live in a part of the UK (Alnwick, Northumberland...though I grew up on Tyneside) where folk still think ALL predators are bad and fit for nothing but the shotgun At times I often feel that trying to educate them is like holding back the tide like King Canute....their attitude is that THEY are countryside born-and-bred and I am only a townie so what would I know (even though I've been interested in nature since I was a toddler and a keen birder/naturalist since I was 134 years old)

I think the lack of songbirds in gardens in towns may be far more in part to how folk garden nowadays. When I was a child the gardens in our council house estate were divided by hawthorn hedges in which birds would breed...nowadays it's fences of metal or wood! A lot of people nowadays are also quick to pave over their gardens and not have proper lawns and beds of flowers to attract insects (beneficial baby bird food) and are just generally so out of tune with the natural world around them that anything Non Human is to be controlled, sprayed, poisoned and tidied up to within an inch of it's life! Even in the countryside bird numbers have gone down because land is used so intensively. Even just 20 years ago I could go birding and know where all the Corn Buntings were but nowadays you very rarely get them in Northumberland....simply because winter crops have changed!

[Guest]

(even though I've been interested in nature since I was a toddler and a keen birder/naturalist since I was 134 years old)

I know you shouldn't really ask someone their age but.........how old are you?

[veggiechicken]

I'm too much of a lady to ask but Gillykat looks remarkable for her age. They say gardening keeps you young

[the plumber]

i repeat. raptors are protected at the cost to all other native birds. the rspb are building nesting sites all over brittain. the ballance has tipped. and i did NOT mention shooting . by flying rats i presume you refer to pigeons which saved untold thousands of pilots and soldiers in 2 wars. a dicken medal was awarded to many flying rats. i notice no one mentioned our pussycat friends.the death of one breeding bird equates to at least 2 nests a year. or 8 chicks. work it out. since when was a flying rat not a bird.this is my last statement on the matter. the rspb dare not take on the cat lobby.

[veggiechicken]

Let me try to clarify - Nobody has mentioned "shooting" or suggested that you, or anyone else on this forum, would do so.

I believe that "flying rat" refers to woodpigeons, not domestic "homing" pigeons which were trained to deliver messages during the wars.

Any discussion about cats and birds on this forum, ends in argument and tears. I am, therefore, closing this thread before it goes the same way.