Today at 1:30 at the paddocks beside the Tuggeranong archery club. I observed a hawk flying towards me about 10 metres above the open paddock. At about 50 metres from me it suddenly stopped moving forward and went into a untidy twisting
dive towards the ground. As it got close to the ground a Magpie-lark on the ground realised it was in danger and flew up calling. Almost as soon as the Magpie-lark was flying the Sparrowhawk aborted the attack and continued on basically the same direction
until it was out of my view. It seemed a rather clumsy attack, as a more direct method would surely have been less obvious. Only then as it twisted its tail around could I get a clear view of the tail as notched and by shape and size it would be a female Collared
Sparrowhawk. A Masked Lapwing also flew up in alarm as it was flown over.
Philip
