France in Focus

I am pretty sure we have a pair of éperviers nesting in a tree in the garden. I’m going to have a look through binoculars today to check it out.

First time since we’ve been here - 17 years.

It may be because the vineyards round here have stopped using pesticides and are changing their maintenance methods so there are more little furry animals.

I've seen them nesting at a client's house - somehow they manage to share the eaves with a pair of owls. It's quite distracting, when you're face down in the flowerbed, busily weeding, to have these beautiful creatures flitting above you, between nearby trees, then perfecting the flight straight under the roof to make their nest/feed their young.

I assume we are talking about "Sparrowhawks" we have them here they like to hang around the bird feeder, they do take a few but they have their own young to feed.

Eperviers seem to be getting a little more common these days because there are many more sightings than there used to be. But then perhaps they are benefiting indirectly from all the feeders we put out today !
We have one who visits regularly but I don't know where the nest is. One day he took an unwary greenfinch ... I hadn't realised how small they were. I took a couple of photos last year but haven't managed this year yet.

We once found one grounded in our garden. It had no obvious injuries but could only hop so we picked it up & put it in a box with some chicken pieces & left it to rest.
Later that day it seemed perkier so we put it on a beam in the stable where it stayed all night.
The next morning it was a lot more active & eventually took off to a nearby tree.
A couple of days later a sparrowhawk was sat on our roof looking down at us & sqeaking away for all it's worth.
We'd like to think it was the same bird who had returned to say "thank you".

One I took earlier, a little shy.