Like the kestrel, the sparrow-hawk is content with a slovenly nest, which it builds of dead twigs on the ruins of other nests—usually those of magpies, crows, or pigeons. Or it uses a squirrel's drey as a foundation, or comes year after year to its own old home. Usually the chosen site is not very high in a tree—larches and oaks are favourites—and the nest will be found near the trunk: in short oaks it may be in the cup formed where several branches spread away. We have found a nest within ten feet of the ground. The nest, when you climb to it, is much larger than it appears from below, and only a man with long arms could encircle it. There may be five eggs, pale white, blotched with dark chestnut-brown, the markings of eggs in one clutch sometimes showing a beautiful variation, while the markings of the clutches of different birds differ considerably. The shells, like those of the kestrel's eggs, are very thick—even the hawk's sharp claws would hardly puncture them without intentional effort.
Should you hear a soft whistling in a wood—not unlike the whistling of the farmer's wife when she calls her chickens to meals, but much subdued—you may know there is a sparrow-hawk's nest not far away. A glimpse of the whistler gives rise to a general alarm-cry among blackbirds. If the whistling leads to the discovery of young hawks, on your approach they will assume attitudes suggestive of disgust and resentment. In their poses and markings there is something owl-like about young hawks: and, as with young owls, there is a good deal of difference in the size of the fledglings, and in the state of their feathering. The strongest young one has the pick of the food, and quickly outgrows his brothers and sisters. Should the mother bird be killed, the cock will rear the family unaided on the small birds on which they thrive. The preservation of woods has meant a steady increase in the hosts of small birds, and hawks in consequence are under no necessity to prey on game-birds. Some sparrow-hawks will acquire the game-feeding habit: others will pounce by chance on a small game-bird; but sparrow-hawks are in no way dependent on game, living for the most part on finches and the like, thereby helping to preserve the balance of scales of which the gamekeeper and his master take little heed.
The Keeper Outwitted
One evening we were passing through a large, old-fashioned wood, when we came upon a keeper feeding his pheasants—many hundreds of them: and the talk went round to the question of sparrow-hawks and game. We suggested that it was a wise keeper who spared the sparrow-hawk—that this hawk did not kill game for a tithe of its food—and that the time only came to kill it after it had been proved to attack game as a habit. But the keeper would not hear of this; and he thanked his stars, he said, that not a sparrow-hawk remained alive in his woods. Just as he said these words we chanced to see before us on the ride, in the middle of the long rank of pheasant coops, a dead blackbird. The feathers lay scattered about the bird in a circle; there was every sign of a sparrow-hawk's work. We called the keeper's attention to that blackbird's body. He agreed that a hawk had killed it, and then we drew from him the confession that he had not lost a single pheasant from a sparrow- or any other hawk. The keeper told us a story of how a brood of sparrow-hawks had been reared in a tree at the back of the very hut in which the pheasants' food was mixed. Though the hut was also a sort of watch-tower, yet the man who spent his days thereabouts had failed to notice the hawks until the young birds left the nest. This is not to say that the powerful old hen sparrow-hawk did not raid the pheasants; but it is certain that she outwitted the under-keeper who worked daily at the hut, and it proves that an under-keeper may not know all that is to be known about sparrow-hawks and their ways.
A Jackdaw Nursery
Among the birds not loved by keepers are jackdaws. One old keeper friend of ours has brought hundreds of jackdaws to a bad end. One evening, years ago, when walking through a park, his keen eyes noticed a hole high up in the stem of an ash-tree; and as he looked, out flew a jackdaw—never to return. Passing that way again, another jackdaw flew out, and paid the penalty of living in that keeper's preserves. He found the hole to be a favourite place for these birds, for it made an excellent nursery for the young. Season after season, the keeper kept his eye on the hole. As he went by, he would make a peculiar squeaking noise, which would call out any birds that might be at home. The stem of the tree about the hole became riddled with shot with such curious effect that when the tree fell the keeper cut out the section containing the hole; and it may be seen in his parlour, among other treasures, to this day.