{"id":423497,"date":"2026-02-13T11:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423497\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T11:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:32:15","slug":"west-sussex-man-spots-sparrowhawk-in-his-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423497\/","title":{"rendered":"West Sussex man spots sparrowhawk in his garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Rob Pearson, from Pulborough, photographed the sparrowhawk after it landed in his garden, clutching a smaller bird in its talons.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Pearson said he was looking out of his window to observe waterlogged floodplains nearby, when he spotted the bird of prey on his garden fence.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;There was no time to go searching for my camera, so I grabbed my phone, zoomed in and took four shots.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Once transferred to my desktop I was able clearly to see what I had photographed: a small hawk eating its prey.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;The hawk\u00a0stayed for about ten minutes and was a strange visitor to our garden.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;We normally see only blackbirds and thrushes, but I guess with its usual hunting ground turned into a sea, it needed somewhere dry to have its breakfast.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Pearson added that he occasionally sees birds of prey while walking through the nearby Pulborough Brooks, but it was unusual to see one so close to home.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Pulborough is one of a number of places in Sussex that has recently been impacted by flooding, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theargus.co.uk\/news\/25832526.dramatic-pictures-show-flooding-pulborough-west-susex\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">dramatic pictures<\/a> recently showing floodwater encroaching on homes following weeks of rain.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  According to the Wildlife Trust, sparrowhawks are excellent bird hunters, and often visit gardens to catch small species of birds like finches, sparrows, and tits.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The birds were once considered endangered in the UK, with numbers plummeting in the 1950s and 60s due to the use of pesticides.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  They have since seen a significant resurgence, although still feature on the Birds of Conservation Concern Amber List.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Pearson, from Pulborough, photographed the sparrowhawk after it landed in his garden, clutching a smaller bird in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-423497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}