Kestrels and sparrowhawk

[Stewlaws]

No pictures to post, but driving into Bristol today watched 2 kestrels on a pylon wire sitting adjacent to one another, not something you normally see this time of year or come to that normally, then I watched sparrowhawk flying overhead relatively high getting harangued by a flock of possibly finches, always amuses me that within nature this mob handed display is allowed to proceed against what is effectively their predator.

More odd is why mob a predator when no young present and everything fledged long a go... Fascinating nature!

[davelumb]

I don't think small flocking birds can help themselves when they see a raptor, it's instinct.

[Stewlaws]

I don't think small flocking birds can help themselves when they see a raptor, it's instinct.

Obviously a survival instinct is present through flight/fight... But watching a group haranguing this sparrowhawk way up was brazen, I've seen some great feats of courage from some species protecting young/nests ... including a hen pheasant dragging a wing enticing a fox away from a clutch she was sitting on, but January I did find it incredible these birds were engaged in a gesture quite unnecessary.

[Kev Berry]

Pradatory birds cannot afford to get hurt/lose feathers etc...means death/starvation
So prey or other birds like crows that on a one to one basis they would have no bother despatching gang up on them.
Only needs a few feathers out of place to seriously disable them

[Crackoff]

Its always the Crows that mob the Buzzards around hear

Grant