After days of being perplexed by a cry emanating from a copse of trees I resorted to the wisdom of my Merlin bird app. I'd been thinking fox or fox cub, maybe in distress, and had been trawling through the thicket at 7 a.m. looking for a wounded creature.
The creature turns out to be a sparrow hawk and far from distressed I'd say it's making a meal of it, surrounded as it is by wrens, robins, blue tits and siskins....
Am reposting a poem I wrote a few months ago about the sparrow hawk that visited our back garden.
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/sparrowhawk/
The Killing Field
He would have had his head tilted listening for earthworms.
He wouldn't have noticed a shadow hugging the ground
or heard the short wings swooping the air
propelling the raptor forward, its long tail fanned out
to break speed.
The last thing the blackbird saw was the yellow eyed sparrow hawk
fixing it in a deadly stare before claws descending
left shorn feathers blacken the air.
What we saw looking out our kitchen window
was a hooked beak delve into bird skull
and strong yellow legs pin their prey to the ground.
It was too late to save the songster
and probably unwise.
Copyright Cathy Leonard 2024
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