I stumbled across a bird of prey wrestling with it’s next meal in Dublin 1 this morning. Can anyone identify what it is? (WARNING: it’s a tough watch for animal lovers)

I stumbled across a bird of prey wrestling with it’s next meal in Dublin 1 this morning. Can anyone identify what it is? (WARNING: it’s a tough watch for animal lovers) from ireland

28 comments

  7. “Tough watch for animal lovers” ?
    So animal lovers are against nature? Should we feed all animals, birds, fish, insects, etc, with chemicals so they don’t have to kill?

  9. Raw nature.
    Fascination, population wise the sparrowhawk is vastly outnumbered so I don’t see this should cause animal conservation concern.

    Winder why it went for a bird as opposed to a rodent
    D1 his rat free?

  13. Same thing happened in our front garden last week. We hoped the bird would fly away with the pigeon, but it stayed to eat the whole thing and leave a pile of feathers behind.

  15. Sparrow Hawk 100%, probably the smallest Bird of Prey in Ireland. Pretty voracious predator, they’ve razor sharp claws.
    I see people commenting that it’s a buzzard, a buzzard is like 3/4 times the size of a sparrowhawk.
    Really interesting video OP, not often you get to capture a bird of prey on video attempting to finish off it’s prey, especially in the City!

  20. Tis a starling she caught. Beautiful bird if only we could see ultraviolet. Think as shite though. Pulled 10 dead ones from my chimney last week, and let another 20 free across the week. Juveniles. Thicker than the thickest shite. There’ll still be plenty for the murmuration. It’s a throw shite at a wall species. There seems to be more sparrowhawks and raptors of all types around. Have seen these hawks around more in the last couple of years than I would have in the 90s. It’s good. More raptors means more prey, means more prey of the prey and so on. Had a buzzard (which this isn’t) circling over the house this morning and screeching bollix to all below. Didn’t give a fuck, if they ran for cover the gave away location. Good cunts. People are (rightly) up in arms about biodiversity this days, but it’s so much better than it was 20 years ago

  21. Like others have said, it’s a sparrow hawk. I was surprised to find them out my back garden in the middle of Dublin.

    One of my neighbour’s pigeons fell victim to one a few years back. I was just about to let the dog out when I noticed a big pile of feathers on the grass, and a sparrow hawk merrily plucking and eating one of the poor fuckers.

    I managed to take a few photos and a video too. This pic isn’t too gorey, and shows the hawk looking straight at the camera:
    https://i.imgur.com/DqKzvHl.jpeg

  26. Animal lover and vegetarian here. I never find this kind of thing a tough watch. I love nature and a bird’s gotta eat, otherwise it’ll be the one to perish later. My mum will cry over ‘poor animals’ but apparently cooks a ‘lovely roast’, no tears.

  27. Commented on a post like this recent enough. Stumbled upon this exact situation out my garden one morning except it was doing it to a pigeon. I just went out for a smoke and the hawk flew off. The pigeon had a gaping hole in its back, being basically eaten alive by the hawk. Grim sight for me personally. I put the pigeon in a box and walked it to my local vet. Didn’t know what I was breaking up but someone told me on the post from back then that I was meant to leave the hawk at is and not interfere

  28. It’s probably mentioned already, but when a sparrowhawk (and some other birds of prey) catch it’s prey it displays what’s known as mantling – where it covers the prey with its wings so other birds can’t see it. This video gives you a lovely example

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