Birds of prey sightings in Paddock Wood

For many years the only birds of prey you were likely to see above the skies of Paddock Wood were kestrels and sparrowhawks, but in the last five years buzzards (Buteo buteo) have increasingly been seen in the spring time, gliding on the thermals above the town. Often it is the sound of gulls (more associated with trips to the seaside) which are the first giveaway that there is a buzzard in the sky. For gulls, along with crows and sometimes magpies, appear to take great delight in mobbing the soaring buzzards.

Buzzards soaring in the sky (www.britishbirds.co.uk).

Over the last 25 years buzzards numbers have risen steadily across the whole of the UK, but it has only been in the last 10 years that they have been regularly seen in Kent, but now they are a feature of the Paddock Wood skies, particularly in March & April.  I think they must also be breeding fairly locally, for during the last two summers, juvenile buzzards have been seen resting on trees in Foal Hurst Wood. Maybe this year I will find a nest in one of the woodland trees?

Red Kite, with forked tail (Milton Keynes Natural History Society).

The second bird of prey to return to our skies is the Red Kite (Milvus milvus), but sightings are currently rare. During the winter of 2014-15 a red kite was seen fairly frequently in the Brenchley area. In April 2015 I saw this bird on two occasions sweep past the Old Churchyard & fly over the Waitrose supermarket and then gliding in the skies above the Allington Road area of the town for some time. I have not seen a red kite so far this year, but again like buzzards they are on the increase across the UK and I think it is only a matter of time before they are seen regularly in the Paddock Wood area. They are fairly easy to identify in the sky, just look for the heavily forked tail.

I wrote about Kestrels in a post on 20^th February, but suffice to say that hunting areas around the town for this charming, but far smaller bird of prey, are likely to reduce once the planned new housing is built.

Sparrowhawk picnic ! (Wikipedia)

Lastly, the Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), which has been a regular feature of our back gardens since the 1980’s. As my post on 31^st January showed if you put out bird food then increasing numbers of small and medium sized birds will flock to the feast you have provided. Theses birds often chatter and chirp as they are feeding and every once in a while they go deadly silent. Two seconds later a sparrowhawk will swoop through the garden at an astonishing speed and garb an unsuspecting bird in its talons and carry it away to feed upon, either from a favoured plucking post, or if the bird is too large (like a pigeon) on your lawn. Sparrowhawks regularly patrol a patch of gardens so don’t be surprised to see them, particularly in cold winters, as the smaller birds move into our gardens to find food.

Last September I found a juvenile sparrowhawk dead on my patio. It had a broken neck and I can only assume it swopped and flew into one of the conservatory windows, which appeared to have a bird imprint dusted on the glass.

Dead juvenile sparrowhawk....

... with amazingly sharp talons.

I guess that given that all the proposed housing schemes are planned to be built upon agricultural land, which as I have written in earlier posts has a more restricted bird population in places, many of the new gardens will attract increasing numbers of birds to feed on the food provided by the new householders. So expect a few more sparrowhawks to arrive as well !