I just (at 7 p.m. today) saw out my lounge room window an adult male Collared Sparrowhawk (about 3 to 4 metres distance from me, arrive and perch in what I think is a Chinese Elm, which now has just a start of small leaves, so very clear
view). It was being shadowed by a blue male and two green Satin Bowerbirds and one, then two, Pied Currawongs. The bowerbirds appeared to be making an open beak threat display directed at the sparrowhawk but stayed about a metre or less away, higher in the
tree. The Currawong kept approaching and attempting to lunge at the Sparrowhawk sometimes within a couple cm, which reciprocated, each several times whilst both were jumping about in the tree. So it was not clear who was the more aggressive or the more threatened
to or by the other. All this for a couple of minutes. The last I saw, the sparrowhawk dropped down to the ground on the pathway that runs through the suburb. I could not see what was happening there, because of the hedge plantings, other than a bit of fluttering.
I wondered why it would go down to the ground. I thought I should go out and look but it took me a couple minutes to put on shoes and go out the opposite door and around the house. By that time all the birds had gone. However there was a big collection of
feathers of Crested Pigeon on the ground. Sufficient to identify and as evidence of a capture. Those feathers were not there when I had been outside at about 2:30.
The curious thing is that Lia B (whose house is about 200 metres away) had described to me, having two weeks ago, seen a very similar circumstance involving a Collared Sparrowhawk predation on a Crested Pigeon with a Pied Currawong also
somehow involved (or at least nearby). It is curious how often we have records of Collared Sparrowhawk predation on a Crested Pigeon. Although in this case it is only strong circumstantial evidence.
Philip
