Nature notes

I just spent fifteen minutes watching a sparrowhawk stake out the garden. Not close enough for a decent photograph, alas. It didn't catch anything this time but — given the usual traffic at the bird-feeder — I expect to see it return. It's been a few years (eight?) since the last time a sparrow-hawk dropped by regularly but I was surprised then by the lack of impact it had on the numbers of other visiting birds. I suppose that, since the neighbourhood cats don't act as much of a deterrent (and I suspect the cats are far more lethal), a sparrowhawk is just another "one of those things."