My Bird Table Adventure

systemlord

TK Veteran
My dear old mum turned 80 recently and she' still a nimble girl for her age and one of her hobbies was feeding the local birds early in the morning, She must have cows or something because she's in bed by 9PM and is up by 4.30AM! Anyways, she was putting pieces of cut up bread and butter on the floor in the garden at first, but I told her not to do that, you'll attract vermin. I said, "I'll buy you a nice bird table off Amazon for your birthday."

So, I did my research and ordered her a table which had something like 400 positive reviews. When it arrived, I assembled it for her and placed it in the garden in a suitable position so nothing could get at it, or so I thought. It's at this point I should mention I have installed 4 motion sensitive CCTV cameras on her house, two out front and two out back.

So, every day, we would watch the recording of the birds having their breakfast and it was lovely, seeing all the species, how some eat high but others pick up the scraps that fall off the floor. But then, into the picture came one of the neighbour's cats. He went up to the base of the bird table and we said, "He's never gonna jump that, but by damn, the nimble little thing did it in one. So now I'm left with a conundrum... how to stop this happening. After some thought, I decided the simplest solution would be to replace the central pole of the bird table for a longer piece, about 4' 6", high enough to keep the cat away but low enough for dear old mum to still reach and feed the birds their breakfast.

So, for the next few weeks all was well. The birds were being fed regularly by my mother in the early morning, and I would also put some small fruit out for them after lunch. So, one day, I was sitting out in the garden when I heard a commotion coming from a nearby patch of brambles. I couldn't make out what it was at first but then, WHOOSH, flying right past me was a bird of prey carrying an unfortunate sparrow. I got a good look at him and determined it was a Peregrine Falcon and I was well chuffed.

So I just thought I'd share my little adventure with you. If anything new happens, I'll keep you posted. ;)
 
liked your story but cant see it being a perigrin falcon they take there prey on the wing it was most probably a sparrowhawk as they are common for hunting round gardens and will dive into anything too get at there prey
 
Both are similar looking birds, but I agree it could well have been a sparrowhawk, love watching them hunt in the local forest, they get to learn new territories real quick and work out their flight paths and memorise them, so fast at flying between tree branches to swoop on their prey.
 
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