A stunning picture of a pair of 'talon locked' buzzards, was taken by Tom Wallis in August 2009. With only seconds to spare, Tom managed to grab 8 pictures of the pair as they fell from the sky. His reward was a well deserved first prize in a recent photo competition run by the Dartmoor Preservation Society.

26 February 2009

Following on from the Goshawk/Sparrowhawk identification article ‘That tricky accipter’ by Mark Darlaston in the April 2008 issue of Devon Birds journal, Mark has taken a couple more great photographs that might be useful for identification purposes. Here, two separate images have been merged to provide a side-by-side comparison of the two species.

26 February 2009

This superb shot of a male Sparrowhawk with its Great Tit kill was taken by Robin Khan at Chudleigh Knighton on 19 January.

image:

Male Sparrowhawk which has just caught a Great Tit.

image:

"This bird has moved into a clearing beside a walkway at the local Stover country park. Unlike most buzzards this one does not seem to be phased by the 200 people on the walkway, during the 3 hours I was watching it at a distance of no more than 20m, including shouting kids barking dogs etc. Taking no notice of the squirrels or pigeons just below a feeder it seems to be on the lookout for frogs which are becoming more plentiful". - John Lee