More nests, more bones

We found two more sparrowhawk nests since my last post! The first one we discovered accidentally by following a sparrowhawk who flew across a woodland track in front of our bicycles. The woods there are absolutely stunning - nicely spaced sitka spruce, moss, and wood sorrel everywhere.

We called this Sorrel Woods.

We heard sparrowhawks calling almost immediately after entering the woods and also it didn't take long to find several plucking posts.

Some contained fresh fathers.

The Sorrel Woods Spars liked rodents too! Sparrowhawks do not frequently eat ground mammals, but in this woodland we found a plucked vole and even its fresh guts on a mossy stump. Very exciting indeed.

We found woodcock bones and feathers which were clearly broken or pulled off. Perhaps it was a fox, or perhaps it was a female sparrowhawk?

And of course we found multiple old tiny skulls and bones - possibly a blue tit?

The nest itself is nicely built, perhaps you can spot it on this photo. Draw a straight line down from X towards the middle of the photograph. You will see a small round mass to the right of the line and almost in the middle of the photo.

      X

It's is a little higher than the nest in The Garden and will require climbing gear, which will be an adventure! We have not seen any activity there, but we are planning to revisit this spot early in the morning soon. Females will be laying eggs in May and we might see a tail sticking out of the nest or a male flying in with food.

The other nest is located in the Mossy Woods - everything here is padded with greenest moss.

A few weeks ago we found feathers of a tree creeper.

Then we were told that a sparrowhawk was heard calling and so we revisited and this time we found a foot of a freshly killed blackbird.

And most amazingly we found a half-plucked and eaten thrush! Something must have spooked the sparrowhawk to leave so much meat behind.

We also found an old egg shell belonging to a medium size bird. A sparrohawk perhaps?

I didn't take a photo of this last nest but it's a solid platform made of small sticks two-thirds way up a tall pine, close to the trunk, and partially hidden by ivy - similar kind of structure as the other two nests we found.

We will revisit The Garden, Sorrel Woods, and Mossy Woods soon and will hopefully spot a female on eggs!

x.