I am a naturalist of almost 50 years continuous practice, but I am still not entirely sure what to make of these moments. Maria and I were having our customary pot of tea when just before 8 o’clock there was a murderous shriek, which we had heard last year when I

plucked a rather dazed immature starling (alive and well; see my Guardian country diary here) from our wood-burning stove. This bird was clearly in a different danger and, sure enough, just beyond our back kitchen door, on the concrete strip that bounds the garden, jammed up tight against a low perimeter wall, was a young sparrowhawk with an adult starling.

For all their timidity when in the presence of humans, sparrowhawks with prey are remarkably persistent and brazen. You might have thought two agitated humans passing just 3m away, albeit behind thick glass, would have spooked him (actually I am not entirely sure which sex this sprawk is and would welcome feedback; it looked small enough for a male but was decidedly brown, had no grey above, except one single moulted feather visible in the image below. That it is last year’s bird is fairly sure. See the pale tonsure and rufous hind crown, as well as the yellow irides, which turn orange in adults) but he was unrelenting.

The other thing that was so apparent was the air of indifference to its victim. I chose my opening picture because so far as I know there was nothing there to elicit that upward  stare by the sparrowhawk . And notice how, as it kneads the life out of the starling (next two images), it barely looks at the other bird. Yet the starling is yelling ‘No!’ in its face, but it looks everywhere but at the victim. Of 30+ plus shots of this moment, only one suggests eye contact between the two. Of course the sparrowhawk must keep itself safe from its own predators as it persists in this rather vulnerable state, but you might also have thought that watching for that long yellow starling bill, would have been wise.

The other striking thing, aside from the sparrowhawk workaday ‘pitiless’ spirit, was the sense of pure terror that must have assailed the poor starling (see below). What made its plight all the more alarming is that this spring, as in every spring i can recall, I have starlings nesting in my office roof, just above where the pictures were taken. Even as I type now I can hear the chicks making their sneezing, wheezing begging calls and occasionally I see a parent fly into the roof cavity with food. Could that bird beneath the hawk be one of these parents? i cannot say. Will my chicks survive if there is only one parent? I probably will be unable to tell because i am due to leave for a trip. But I can tell you that throughout the latter stages of the whole drama, while i was rushing back and forth changing lenses and finding other vantage points to photograph the action, my starling nestlings in their nest were completely silent. Had they intuited or been informed that there was imminent danger?

Eventually the sparrowhawk carried the near-dead starling to the back wall of our back garden and proceeded to pluck and eat it. I continued to photograph the developments from an upstairs window and was mesmerised by the thoroughness of the sparrowhawk’s feeding method. The part first eaten was the head cavity, including the brain and both eyes. The work was done so thoroughly that eventually I could see almost the whole bare skull. The other thing that I would like to convey is the muscularity of this little hawk, who may not weigh 200 gm and just double the starling. Eating and plucking was a process that involved the  whole body and one sequence in particular which i produce in its entirety shows the sheer physicality of the process of eating. The ten images (to be read in sequence) represent less than 30 seconds. Look at the intensity of action, the whole body including that entirely elevated, pointing-in-the-air tail, working to prize food from the tough skin for which starlings are well known.

Here as a reprise in greater detail is that central shot when the bird is at its most focused.

Finally I would say, as a moral commentary on the experience, just moments after it flew off I was placing our fish supper in the fridge for tonight. Is there any moral or attitudinal distinction between us and the sparrowhawk? I think not.