A sunny spring day - almost warm, so the kitchen door stood open this morning. I heard the sudden panic-stricken screeching of a caught bird and rushed out, clapping and shouting as I ran. I knew it was a sparrowhawk attack - I know they have to eat but I can't bear to hear them killing something.There were feathers floating high in the air above the ivy covered wall, and I picked up the clothes-prop, rattling it in the ivy to scare off the hawk, which I couldn't see and supected was on our neightbour's side of the wall. I couldn't leave to go round there knowing that it would only take a quiet couple of seconds for the job to be finished. I yelled for Paul to come, and he wielded the prop so that I could run next door. In a moment he called me back " it's here!" - a female blackbird, on the ground on our side of the wall, and he had seen the sparrowhawk fly off. She squeezed behind a flower tub; I carefully sought her out; her heart was beating so hard. I put her back down; it seemed cold down there in the shade and I went to get a warm hot water bottle to help revive her. When I picked her up again her head drooped, and she was gone. There was a wound on her side. I laid her on the earth of the flower tub and went back indoors.
A short time later Paul went to see, asking me what I had done with her. We both went to look - she'd gone. Did the sparrowhawk come back for her? or did she recover?
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