Unwelcome visitor

[scottste]

sparrow hawk eyeing up the aviary this afternoon... scared all my birds, but thankfully they are all ok.

[stace]

Ew. He looks hungry. I've had several birds of prey stalking my bird at the windows INSIDE my house. They don't miss a trick.

[skysmum]

Certainly someone you don't want hanging around. I had a Red Kite dive bombing my little Jack Russell the other day while she was running of leash, that was scary, thought he was gonna cart her off, he was big enough , not the first time either.

[skysmum]

Jan 8, 2013 22:17:13 GMT stace said:

Ew. He looks hungry. I've had several birds of prey stalking my bird at the windows INSIDE my house. They don't miss a trick.

poor Boo.

[BudgiesBuddy]

He is beautiful, none the less

[Deleted]

I to have problems with birds of prey, my solution was to hang old cd's from fish line around the aviary the reflection spooks the birds away.
Mind it took my birds a while to get used it.

[Deleted]

Wow, that is one gorgeous sparrowhawk! I'm jealous because we barely get any different species of birds in our garden. Wood pigeons, the odd blackbird, the resident magpie family (their chicks are so noisy in summer and I nearly caught one of the adults the other year if I hadn't stop to just look at it instead!) and a pair of blue tits nesting in the spring. Munchy's favourites are the magpies. He calls out to them all the time ^^ Originally he just responded to their sounds and when he saw one he didn't make a sound (I think he thought their squawks were other budgies) but now he recognises them by sight too. He'll squawk-chatter to them and then whistle as if calling a dog (which is blatently not going to attract their attention) and once he said 'Kisses' to one of them, which made me laugh because he definitely would not want a 'kiss' from a magpie XD We did once have a tiny bird land on top of his cage when he was in the garden but it flew off to quickly for me to see what it was. Much cage washing followed, however.

Hopefully the sparrowhawk won't cause too much of a problem, though

[scottste]

Yes CD's can be a good idea Corie, however usually my dog scares them away. Having said that in the summer there was 5 of us sitting in the garden and a sparrow hawk flew down at the avairy, scared the life out of the birds and narrowly missing my cousins head !!

We have quite a few different bird species Ira here in Shropshire; I've had buzzards sitting on my front fence, eyeing up my wifes quail and chicks that she hatches. Not just birds of prey we have wood peckers, jays, magpies, black birds, tits, wag tails and a song thrush which comes back every year, house martins and robins. There was even a parrot loose in the woods behind our house so the local kids came running to tell me one day, but i never actually saw that myself. I would have thought down Swansea there would have been more species.

[Rachael Kellett]

Oh! I had one of these, or it was possibly a kestrel, a young one, that appeared one day. I looked out of my window to see it sat on top of the aviary roof. As soon as I saw it dive off the roof and try to stick its legs through the netting I shot outside and threw a cup of water at it! I went into the aviary to check on them and whilst I was in the shed part I heard a massive BANG BANG and the budgies panicking. I threw open the door to the outdoor flight to see the bird attacking the netting, literally throwing itself at it! I kicked at it and then shot out of the aviary and chased it down the garden! It must have been funny watching me chasing a bird and screaming at it to get away haha! ;D

I now have a stone owl that sits on top of the flight, his name is Stanley, and aso a stone Kestrel that sits on a nearby wooden rail and it seems to have done the trick, I haven't seen the bird since ;D