Birds of Prey - now see them daily.

[ColdApril]

I'm not imagining this, right?

I'm sure I'd never seen a wild bird of prey until I was in my 20s and used to visit my in laws who live in an area where Red Kites were reintroduced and it was always really novel the couple of days a year I was in their garden and could see and hear the kites.

But over the last year or so even where we live I now see birds of prey daily. Which definitely wasn't an occurrence before. I'm in west Kent.

Assuming it's something to be celebrated. I love seeing them.

Wondering if somehow the pandemic helped them out?

I live near one of the few places were you can see ospreys

There are generally more birds everywhere. I sometimes feel like I'm in a Hitchcock film with the amount of pigeons and seagulls that come to our balcony. Way more than previously.

I’m in S Wales and remember a Kite landing in front of us about 20 years ago in Gower. Impossible we were told, they don’t come this far south. Now we see them almost daily.
Lots of buzzards locally but they’ve always been on the local common.

I live in east London and sometimes get a Kestrel on my balcony. A pair have nested on the roof of one of the high rises in the past.

We have Tawny Owls in the wooded area behind our house & one night when DH put the moth light out, one came and sat on top of the folded up rotary washing line, watching the moths go into the trap! 🙂

Generally see sparrowhawk, buzzard and kestrels over our garden.

Tons of kestrels here in Yorkshire. Also saw a sparrowhawk dive down and take a starling. Buzzards line the motorway and play chicken with the cars, and even a red kite spotted locally. Loads of red kites in Norfolk where I visit regularly.

In 1973 I was fascinated by a bird of prey which nested on a tall chimney, the last building left in a desolate urban wasteland alongside the M40 feeder which is now the site of Westfield. It used to hover then drop like a stone to catch its dinner. Must have been a pair but I never saw more than one. Such an odd thing to see in London. Now, in Hampshire, they're thankfully a common site.

For fans, there's are red kite feeding stations in Wales.

I'm in south Wiltshire and we see Kestrels, Buzzards and Red Kites quite regularly. I have also seen a sparrow hawk in our local park where it set up a nest in one of the trees. I've not heard it there for a while which is a shame.

We've got plenty of rats to go round.

@NeverDropYourMooncup I think barn owls are best at eating rats as they hunt at night when there are more rats out and about.

See sparrow hawks daily here (South East). Regularly have them in our driveway eating pigeons. It's very gory

Seeing red kites daily in West London now. It won't be long before they reach Central London which will seem bizarre seeing them circling over St.Pauls!
Not sure why they are so successful as they are very wimpy and I often see them getting bullied in midair by crows and gulls.

i heard my chickens making an absolute racket in the garden a few years ago and went out to see what they were screaming about (it was usually a cat they didn’t recognise). Turned out a small and very disgruntled looking bird of prey was on the lawn. We have a lot of sparrows and starlings nesting in our hedge so it was probably a sparrow hawk.

Mid Suffolk: buzzards everywhere, sparrowhawk, kestrels, barn and tawny owls, peregrine falcon, red kites and recently and most thrillingly of all a goshawk is newly resident in some woods nearby though it’s rarely spotted. Goldcrests keep extra close to the goshawk because of its halo effect according to people familiar with these things. The goshawk is so much bigger than everyone else it’s like a pterodactyl! It’s weird how openly goshawks live in cities like Berlin but are so stealthy in rural England.

There's no way you would miss Red Kites, they have a very loud and distinctive call.

If you want to see raptors up close, look at the Dyfi Osprey Project webcam in Wales. Their nest cameras are so awesome that you can see the ants scuttling over the nest. If you like what you see, chuck them a couple of quid to support this wonderful charity
www.dyfiospreyproject.com/live-streaming
The pair are currently incubating three eggs...