sparrowhawks

Buzzards, peregrines and sparrowhawks had been poisoned and persecuted, ospreys were confined to the wilds of Scotland, and hobbies were one of our scarcest breeding birds.

Birdwatch: Kestrel 2011

He comes to see the curlews and dunlin, the Brent geese and sparrowhawks, "no longer . . . as representatives of their species" but as individual beings, with homes, ages and "histories."

Life in the Woods Toby Lichtig 2011

Unfortunately cars don't work like sparrowhawks, and as they have only been around for, what, 100 years at most, evolution hasn't had a chance to catch up yet.

Suffolk spring Carla 2009

First is -baby season, " which actually extends from late February through to July, beginning with Great Horned Owl babies and ending when the second round of American Kestrels (sparrowhawks, or 'spawks" as falconers affectionately call them) begins to push their siblings out of nests.

Werehunter Lackey, Mercedes 1999

Smaller bells were used on tiercels - smaller ones yet on kestrels, merlins and sparrowhawks.

From This Beloved Hour Lambert, Willa 1982

Then his father presented him with falcons and sparrowhawks for hunting, and arms and robes.

King Arthur and His Knights Maude L. Radford

Besides, all attempts at differentiating an ape-unit into anything else than an ape-unit would be as impossible as to multiply or divide cabbages by turnips, or sparrows by sparrowhawks.

Life: Its True Genesis R. W. Wright

The very tall figures -- draped in a peculiar manner -- with beaks, I had taken from the illustrations of Philippson's bible; I believe they represented deities with heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb relief.

Dream Psychology Psychoanalysis for Beginners Sigmund Freud 1897

When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over by sparrowhawks, it is almost always a young bird -- a "brown thrush" as it used to be called by the old naturalists.

A Shepherd's Life Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs 1881

Nevertheless kestrels are common, and sparrowhawks, if not quite so numerous, are in no degree uncommon.

The Life of the Fields Richard Jefferies 1867