Morning Raider - not for the squeamish!

[Fangman]

Alerted by a mass of birds of all sizes scattering from long tailed tits to pheasant from around the feeders and all kinds of alarm cries to see this unfold before me.

One of about a dozen starlings won't be making it home

The sparrow hawk pinned the prey down and for some seconds completely smothered it under out stretched wings

Almost triumphant

The filal strike

These are just a few of a series of about 20 images taken before it spotted me and flew off with her lunch.

​

 

[LaFoto]

Awww. I do feel for the starling here - but then the sparrow hawk (first time I'm reading this, must check on what that would be in German... hang on. Checked: yes, I would have taken the bird of prey for that, too ) must eat, too, or else he'd die, and then I'd feel for him. Cool series!

 

[MichiganFarts]

Nice shots...I take it you're not completing the food chain with some hawk soup? :lmao:

 

[Forkie]

Man, this is one of those shots I've been longing to take for ages. Congrats, and well done!

 

[Miladymimi]

It's called manteling when they spread their wings out to cover their food. It's a common behavior in birds of prey. I got to play with an american kestrel a few years back, they're feisty little birds. If they were any bigger, they'd be dangerous. Very cool shots, thanks for sharing.

 

[Fangman]

Thanks for the comments - I should have started with this one

The attack!

 

[LaFoto]

Such ACTION!
Wow!
Cool.

 

[Derrel]

Pretty cool sequence of photos. Although it might sadden some to see the starling being made a meal of, there are like a billion starlings in the world, and they're more a menace than most other bird species. Almost like baitfish of the air realm...starlings are plentiful, the raptors much less so...