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BACK TO THE MANCHESTER BIRDING WEBSITE HOMEPAGE -> Manchester Birding Forum -> GENERAL BIRDING DISCUSSION -> Sparrowhawk V Goldfinch!
Post Info TOPIC: Sparrowhawk V Goldfinch!
Dave Thacker


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RE: Sparrowhawk V Goldfinch!
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I have been off work for the past week and I've spent most of it watching my garden feeders. Large numbers of Goldfinches [ 20+] and up to 8 Greenfinches have visited each day with the various Blue , Great and Coal tits. The local Sparrowhawks have also visited my garden daily at least once with Friday having both male and female attacking the birds around the feeders twice.

The male Sparrowhawk has caught 2 Goldfinches and a House sparrow all in flight as they flew from the feeders and over the garden. The birds that flew into the nearby Conifer escape the hawk.

The female Sparrowhawk has a habit of soaring over Swinton with a flock of alarm calling Starlings on her tail then disappearing from view before flying through the garden at speed. She has caught 1 Goldfinch and 3 Feral pigeons this week. Unfortunately one of my neighbours feeds the birds in his garden with corn and bread which has attracted up to 20 feral pigeons. They have started to come into my garden and feed off the bits which the finches drop onto the floor under my feeders. The female Sparrowhawk always makes her attack when there are 6-7 pigeons feeding on the floor and flies into them at speed just as they take flight.

There are still plenty of pigeons left so hopefully I will be seeing more of the hawks

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Dave Thacker
Pete Lane


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Thank's for your replies. As the sparrowhawk is my favourite bird I am inclined to leave well alone, but to give the goldfinches a break I will leave the feeders empty for a few days, then they will have to take their chance!

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Dave Thacker


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Hi Pete

I have had the same problem for a number of years. A pair of Sparrowhawks target the birds in my garden virtually every day. I have probably seen at least 30-40 kills take place mainly finches and Collared doves and as I seem to spend most of my time in work I will be missing a lot more kills taking place.

If you can move your feeders to a different part of your garden or spread them out a bit. If the birds are spread out there is more chance of them escaping.

I have tried to disrupt one of the hawks flight path into my garden by hanging long strips of silver foil from a line hanging 30' above the ground between my neighbours and my own house. About six hours later I watched the female hawk approach at speed and she just turned sideways and flew through the 4'' gap between the foil and caught a Collared dove on the lawn. So that idea was abandoned on the same day

Another idea which seems to be working is that I have welded a cross piece to a 1''nb steel pipe which is about 7' tall. I hang 4 feeders from the cross and I have positioned it up alongside a large Conifer. I have cut off all the lower branches within 8' of the ground. This means that when the hawks attack, the small finches and tits just jump into the Conifer and climb into the dense branches above. The hawks will not fly into the Conifer and the small birds remain unseen.

Unfortunately the Collared doves have not cottoned on yet and they tend to sit about watching the other birds disappear into the tree as the hawks go for the easy target of the dove.

To be honest I love watching Sparrowhawks in my garden and there are many times when they don't catch anything. I put a lot of food out in my feeders and on my bird table and I am rewarded by large numbers of birds visiting my garden. If the hawks catch a couple every so often then its just natures way

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Dave Thacker
Joe Wynn


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Interesting one. I think with artificial feeding (like garden feeders) you will get an unnaturally high number of 'prey' birds like goldfinches, so it follows you will possibly get more sparrowhawks. I'd say let the hawk take the odd finch it won't hurt too much, but at the rate you are describing there might be more than one hawk?

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Nick Isherwood


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Bit of a quandary is that one Pete.

On the one hand, the Sparrowhawk is only doing what comes natural. But on the other hand you've created a slightly artificial environment with your feeders and the hawk is just exploiting it.

You could always try leaving the feeders empty for a while on the hope that the hawk will go off and hunt elsewhere but the problem with that is that your Goldfinches will suffer too.

At the end of the day, garden hunting Sparrowhawks are getting very common these days and it's probably something you're just going to have to live with.

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Pete Lane


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What do you do? We have a series of feeders in the garden which attract good numbers of birds including lots of goldfinch, we have also had regular visits from a male sparrowhawk who has on one occassion caught a mouse and ate it wlile perched on a garden seat.
The problem is that the sparrowhawk has now latched on to the birds visiting the feeders and seems to pick them off at will mostly goldfinches. Almost everyday it catches one and eats it sat on the same seat, and these are just the ones we see, there are most likely a lot more.
Do we stop filling the feeders or just let nature take its course?

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