Behaviour of Collared Sparrowhawk - Narrabundah Hill

[Philip Veerman <>]

This is a very old story, but years ago the Olsens had in their rehab or unreleasables collection, a captive Collared Sparrowhawk that was missing an eye. The story was (I don’t know the evidence), that a Pied Currawong was the culprit. I can’t say I have specifically seen an aggressive interaction but not at all surprised.

 

Philip

 

From: Duncan McCaskill [
Sent: Friday, 28 April, 2017 4:59 PM
To: Jean Casburn
Cc: canberrabirds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Behaviour of Collared Sparrowhawk - Narrabundah Hill

 

I saw similar behaviour a couple of weeks ago around my place in Giralang. It was magpies, not currawongs that were attacking/being attacked. The sparrowhawk aggressively chased a magpie around while two other magpies were on the sparrowhawk's tail. After a bit of noisy chasing they all took to the trees to rest a while, then repeated a couple of times. The sparrowhawk was quite vocal.I have never seen a raptor go after its tormentors so aggressively before. The sparrowhawk might have been the primary aggressor. Based on its small size, I thought the sparrowhawk was probably a male - it seemed smaller than a magpie. A little while later I saw the sparrowhawk go after a Crested Pigeon. The pigeon got away with a few less feathers.

 

Duncan.

 

On 28 April 2017 at 14:32, Jean Casburn <> wrote:

Has anybody seen a Collared Sparrowhawk being chased or chasing 5 Pied Currawong?

I couldn’t decide if the sparrowhawk was the aggressor or if it was the currawongs.  The main stage for the drama was a dead tree where four or five currawong were landed, and also the sparrowhawk.  At one moment the sparrowhawk appeared to be in fast pursuit of a currawong, then another moment another currawong would appear from up the hill and get after the sparrowhawk.  The sparrowhawk didn’t seem to be at all bothered by the incident, and I saw it gliding above the earlier site of the melee in relaxed fashion. The sparrowhawk later flew off up the hill and the Currawong dispersed. I wondered if the sparrowhawk was practising pursuit tactics.  All of this lasted only a few minutes.

 

 

I counted 14 Pied Currawong along the northern boundary of Narrabundah Hill this morning. Very quiet and cold – 32 species in all.

Jean