Well - it's been traumatic this afternoon, and I thought we'd lost a couple of the house martins! Sitting in the garden, I looked up as there was a sudden flurry of large wings by the nests in the eaves. My first thought was a pigeon or dove - but as it flew away (briefly stopping on a nearby flat roof) it was sharper in definition with different wing markings. It all happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly that I didn't take it all in. But I feared it must have been a raptor - probably a sparrow hawk.
All was quiet in and around the nest for the afternoon. No chattering. No swooping back and forth. No squabbles between various house martins. But as I sat down to my laptop, the nests - about 3ft away from my upstairs window - suddenly seemed to burst into life! They are chattering at each other, and perhaps it's been nothing more than a scare.
But could it have been a sparrow hawk? Would they risk trying to get a bird from so awkward a site? Is this predator behaviour that has been seen by others?
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Well - it's been traumatic this afternoon, and I thought we'd lost a couple of the house martins! Sitting in the garden, I looked up as there was a sudden flurry of large wings by the nests in the eaves. My first thought was a pigeon or dove - but as it flew away (briefly stopping on a nearby flat roof) it was sharper in definition with different wing markings. It all happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly that I didn't take it all in. But I feared it must have been a raptor - probably a sparrow hawk.
All was quiet in and around the nest for the afternoon. No chattering. No swooping back and forth. No squabbles between various house martins. But as I sat down to my laptop, the nests - about 3ft away from my upstairs window - suddenly seemed to burst into life! They are chattering at each other, and perhaps it's been nothing more than a scare.
But could it have been a sparrow hawk? Would they risk trying to get a bird from so awkward a site? Is this predator behaviour that has been seen by others?