Birds beware!

High drama in the garden this morning. We were alerted to the presence of this sparrowhawk by a loud thump on the dining-room window as the raptor - presumably - failed to turn out of its deadly dive on the bird-table. By the time we looked out, it was sitting on the top of the hedge between our garden and that of our neighbour, who also has bird feeders hanging from the shed behind the sparrowhawk.

For the next half hour we watched in horrified fascination as it prowled along the hedge, sometimes swooping down on our side and then swerving up to go over the top and dive down the far side. We were amazed to see that it could actually power right through the hedge - hiding-place for a multitude of small birds.

For the record, there didn't seem to be any feathers lying around in our garden after it finally flew off - but we don't know about next door.