An Unexpected Visitor

My husband WhatsApped me whilst I was walking home from a friend's house on Saturday afternoon with the startling news that a sparrowhawk had taken down a pigeon in our garden. A photo showed the bird of prey standing on the feathery corpse. His message underneath read “pigeon not dead yet” and then almost immediately another “it's dead”. I rushed to the back window to join him as soon as I arrived home. Feathers everywhere, a splash of startlingly red blood on the concrete flags. Pomegranate juice. The Sparrowhawk eagerly pulling on the white sinewy strap that must have been the spinal column. Efficiently plucking to access the flesh below. The pigeon's head wobbled as she tugged. 

My daughter joined us to watch, providing useful facts from Google and from a new friend at school who is “really into birds”. She tells us the Sparrowhawk is a young female, as you can tell by the markings, particularly around the eyes. Red markings around the eyes means older and these eyes are not that red. “It's like watching a nature documentary from our window” she says. The cat crouches by the cat flap in the back door to get a better view watching intently. More feathers fly. Beak tears at flesh. “The head’s nearly off” says my husband as I go through to the kitchen to start making an apple cake to serve for pudding after our tea of sausage and mash. As I switch on the oven he calls “it's off”. I hurry back to watch, a bit revolted but also I just want to see. I'm amazed that this is happening in my small suburban garden in Bristol. The Sparrowhawk continues to tear and suddenly the pigeon’s crop is breached (I think that's what it's called). Undigested bird seed from many feeders including ours pour out. “Corn fed” my husband quips. I think of that plump pigeon in flight, a thin flesh bag filled with seed.

My daughter adds to our sparrowhawk knowledge: they don't normally like to be so exposed, so out in the open with their prey, more evidence for the young and inexperienced theory. Plus that pigeon is nearly as big as her, hard to lift. Midway through the drama my son joins us on video call from university in Plymouth. He's only been gone a few weeks, the first year of a biological sciences degree. I miss him and try not to tell him. He's seen the sparrowhawk photo on the family WhatsApp group and we shakily try to use my husband's phone to show my son what we see. As we talk and I continue to mix up the apple cake the sparrowhawk consumes enough of the pigeon to be able to lift it and flies slightly unsteadily, wings working hard, up over the branches of our apple tree, and then over the asbestos roof of our garage at the end of the garden, and she's away.

Left on the paving slabs is the absence of pigeon. Fluffy breast feathers fan out, a wriggly length of intestine, the bloody patch fading in colour now. Golden corn and bird seed, surely much of the pigeon's weight. Only the head remains, I think about burying it, V would probably like the skull. Later she comes into the kitchen as I'm taking the apple cake out of the oven; “mum can we bury the pigeon head in the garden?” “sure” I reply, secretly pleased that I knew she would want this. “Thanks, I was so sure you'd say no!”  So I don rigger gloves and dig down into one of our raised beds. I mark the place with a large stone and send up a prayer that no local rats scrabble down and dig it up. I know V is thinking of pale white bone, a new skull asking to be sketched with her fine inkwork, scratching and crosshatching.

I wrote this in early October 2025 as part of a journal for a short nature writing course with University of Bristol. Burying bones is one way to clean them, as microbes in the soil and other organisms will help to decompose soft tissue. We plan to dig up the head next year, another bone to add to my daughter's collection.