Anyone Help ID This Bird of Prey

[Auntienumber8]

Apologies for terrible photo but it was at the end of the garden and I didn’t want to scare it off. Plus it’s through a rainy window,

I noticed it at around 7pm while dishing dinner up. It was pulling apart a small animal.

It had three distinctive flashes of white on its wing, a hooked beak and was speckled, A mix of dark, light brown and cream. It was a bit bigger than a large pigeon. Was a beautiful looking creature. We have had a look online and think it may be a sparrowhawk. We live close to the Peak District.

Buzzard

Goshawk?

Hard to tell but we definitely get sparrowhawks a lot round gardens.

Could be a buzzard but they often go for carrion not active killing

I'm struggling with your picture but sparrow hawk seems accurate

Sparrowhawk

Goshawk are really shy, woodland dwellers, they won't go into gardens.

Size wise it would fit a sparrowhawk or small buzzard

Beautiful bird whatever it is, how lucky for you 🦅

Yes looks like sparrowhawk

Thank you for all your input, I’m thinking likely sparrowhawk as quite a bit of back up. It’s such a shame the photo is so bad, I have never seen a bird of prey for so long in the wild, well a garden it’s hardly the Serengeti, our own dinner went cold because we were watching.

Female sparrowhawk. Males are smaller and have a blue-grey head and back.

Sparrowhawk. We had one eat the female blackbird on our lawn. Frightened the life out of our cat.

I call birds of prey and magpies murder birdies.