Magpie controls the population of small birds, while sparrowhawk controls the population of magpie. Foodchain

My message to that magpie would be 'What goes around comes around' !!

The Magpie's voice got weaker as the Sparrowhawk's claws dug deeper. Great video footage thanks for sharing it.

Beautiful photography, editing, and close ups. This is something that most of us rarely get to see in nature. Thank you for sharing and posting.

Fantastic film work and thank you for putting it on this site

Amazing job on this video. Usually people make the mistake of getting too close trying to get the best shots and the raptor ends up flying away. Seems like you were a good distance and got some amazing footage. Cheers!!

Amazing how much energy and patience is involved in hunting like this. Great video. You can just see the horror in the magpie's eyes, and the rapid breathing of trying to escape stands out so much!

It's the circle of life. The Sparrowhawk may have chicks to feed. It's sad but the only positive thing to take away is most things don't kill for fun. They kill to survive.

good bloody job the amount of eggs and fledglings the Magpie takes and kills its payback time.

Of course that, by empathy, I feel sorry for the preyed bird. It sucks to be a prey. But as the british ethologist Richard Dawkins said before: Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent.

Great footage! We see Sparrowhawks in our area quite a few times each year, those that come to our gardens are often too late to catch a kill but we do see some flying towards woodland with little birds in their claws.

Cooper's hawk, Sparrow hawk, Red Tail hawk and Im sure their others. I learned a lot watching these videos

If this Sparrowhawk make a regular habit of killing Magpies it can only be good for the local songbird population, they are the very worst killers of small birds and also egg takers, the Magpies need taking out by whatever means possible.

It is indeed a balancing act, though did find myself wishing that the Sparrowhawk would get on with it and stop looking around! One wonders how many times the Magpie had done that to other birds, but then its as natural to both of them as us eating a bowl of cornflakes.

Amazing footage, thanks for posting. Friday afternoon I witnessed a Sparrowhawk take a Dove from my lawn, felt quite honoured seeing such a beautiful bird visit my garden in its quest for food. Didn't realise one would take a Magpie, thanks again.

This is some INCREDIBLE footage. Kudos, to whomever was capturing this on film. I've been in the avian field, for nearly 25yrs now, and it still never ceases to amaze me, the sheer beak power the "Corvid" family of birds possess. Indeed as one other poster commented about, this was in fact large prey, for this particular hawk to catch, but not impossible either.

Magpies are the biggest killer of localised small birdlife in most areas, with their overbearing overdominent nature sweeping through, stealing nests, killing eggs and generally destroying all in their paths. When I moved into my house nearly 14 years ago now, I used to have a lot of finches, bluetits, robins, sparrows, thrushes etc around my house..... now we only have magpies. Progressively the magpie has killed through nearly all of the species here. Its about time the sparrowhawks diverted their attention to the Magpies.

I think adding any kind of music would detract fom the raw brutality of nature.

Good footage, really well done. Sparrowhawks are awesome. And I love the way it puts its talons right in the magpie's beak... it's like "shhhhh"

@cozmium Hiya, thanks for the comment. I agree to a point about us interfering and being compassionate, but think about it, if we interviened we would indeed be helping the magpie... but being cruel to the hawk by depriving it of a meal. Cant be compassionate to both as by interfering we would change the nature of things and if every one did this the whole food chain would be well and truley screwed up.

Good stuff. I love birds but, detest Magpies with a passion. I was prompted to Google this as I have just had a Sparrowhawk in my garden for the first time with its quarry in its talons but being bullied by 2 of those shit things, it eventually left having dropped what it had caught. I can't believe how close you got to that beautiful animal.

That magpie is very young. An adult would have been much more difficult to hold down in this manner.

Brilliant photography Eddie. I currently have an infrared camera set up on a feeding station in my garden in the Cotswolds to film foxes and hedgehog's. I can see them live, but at the moment I don't have the ability or equipment to video the interaction between them and my cat's. Only some dodgy video from my mobile phone. Fascinating stuff as the foxes are terrified by my cats and when the cat attacks the foxes run for their lives!

@tomtalker2000 Thank you. I didnt know what to do, but the noise the magpie was making was distressing. I only interviened when it was obvious the magpie could not recover. The hawk NEVER let go and i pushed it aside to get a headshot. It was still carrying on ripping at it hours later.

Thank you for your video. I don't think it's bad you filmed it. What's frustrating about what's happening there is they've recently found the magpie to be self-aware, as intelligent as a chimpanzee or dolphin, and with an equally proportioned brain to a human and a highly developed forebrain in particular. They use tools, plan, socialize, even have some evidence of language. They're considered among the most intelligent 5-10 animals, and likely the most intelligent bird by a wide margin. I learned this after discussing with my wife, PhD student in psychology studying animal consciousness. So it's sad to see a larger, stronger bird making something suffer that probably has an internal cognitive experience of life that's a lot like us humans. But this does happen in nature, all the time. I'd still hoped the magpie might have a way of escaping, but the hawk seems to have an inescapable iron grip on the poor bird. Intelligence wouldn't do it much good there. Just curious, but did the magpie make it or was it eaten in the end? All the best my friend. And again, thanks for your bravely posting this. It is valuable and should stay up, even if it's gory.

That may be but I would have helped the Magpie. It took quite a while for that bird to die. Can YOU relate to the terror and fear!

Wow, this is a lot better than my sparrowhawk video.

Great video, I saw a sparrowhawk today standing on a wall just a few feet away from me in Sussex, the first time I'd seen one so close.

*+Michael Koser* "There is no such raptor known as a sparrow hawk. That is a coopers hawk. Still a cool video." Don'tcha just love internet experts? Mr Koser, read a book once in a while, preferably one that includes birds that aren't indigenous to *your* country.

i would have saved the magpie

Eddie, outstanding video!! That was nature at it's finest! That magpie put up a hell of a fight for sure!! I assume the hawk won out in the end and got it's meal. You must have been on top of those birds to get those great close-ups! Well done!

This is the most amazing thing I've seen yet on KZfaq! This is nature at it's cruellist I know, but wow it is still fantastic to see this hawk in action. What a natural killer. Have you part two. We live in the heart of the forest and often hear this cry. Now I know what it is. Thank you for showing this.

@NiteLiter It was an ols Canon XM1 3 chip Mini DV video camera. I now use a full size shoulder mounted broadcast quality JVC GY HD 201 camera. Stills were done on a Nikon D300 with 18-200

Thank you. Much apreciated. Eddie

@GRPLiningServices Thanks for that. The camera was a Canon XM1. A 3 chip DV camcorder. A bit dated now but an excellent camcorder. I still geep it as a backup. Had items broadcast on TV news and BBC real rescues from it!! Look on my website for more info on my current equipement and to see my usual line of filming, lol. Distance ranged from 30ft (ist shot) right up to about literally a few feet from them. Hawk kept looking at me, with "the look", but he wasnt giving up his dinner!!

lol its like "hey im gonna eat you but until you shut up i'm gonna pull all your feathers out"

I love when they start plucking them. The prey gets so terrified when they start getting plucked lol

@eddiehowland Did it actually eat the magpie or not?

Excellent video, well shot!

@maven21 Hi Yes the film was edited. Overall it took 6 plus hours for the hawk to fly off. People seem to think it was a young hawk - I dont know. I think the hawk took the magpie off the branches above where it was filmed. They were in the branches fighting when i first heard the noise. By the time i got the camera - (45 seconds) it was as on the ground as you see in the film..

@eddiehowland so what was the end result for the magpie did the sparrow hawk finish it off and eat it of did he give up tring to kill it

@yatter1 Thank you very much. You should see the videos i usually do then. some are on here

@gerbilmaster21 Thanks for that. The camera was a Canon XM1. A 3 chip DV camcorder. A bit dated now but an excellent camcorder. I still keep it as a backup. Had items broadcast on TV news and BBC real rescues from it!! Look on my website for more info on my current equipement and to see my usual line of filming, lol.

I saw this happen in a car park in my village yesterday - at least 100 metres from the woods. I couldn't see what species the victim was, but the sparrowhawk was plucking a lot of white feathers out of its chest.

@tomtalker2000 Unless your a cameraman, then it was right place right time, LOL THANKS for all your comments. Apreciated.

Good thing you didn`t interfere! A magpie is pretty much the biggest prey a sparrowhawk can handle, so it`s really a touch & go if it can actually make the kill. And usually younger, desperate (female) hawks will go for it by the time they start to fend for themselves. Chasing it away would mean almost certain death for the hawk, as it spends a huge amount of energy on a chase like this.

Thank you

@GLOKD Thanks for that. Apreciated.

Great video, it seems that you can see what the beast was thinking

Sparrowhawk is like beautiful angel who eliminate the evil

Incredible footage. I live in West Sussex. A Sparrow Hawk took a Wood Pigeon in my back garden. It took an hour and twenty minutes to subdue and eat it's fill. I cleaned up afterwards and disposed of the carcase but my wife had missed it all. At 6.30am next morning she noticed the Sparrow Hawk on one of our bushes. It had returned to look for the pigeon for breakfast. This upload may not be to everyones taste but shows true nature as it is meant to be.

Awesome footage. To the uploader please. What camera did you use and how far away from the battle were you?

No. This went on for over 40 mins. The magpie seemed to be geting weaker and weaker and the sparrowhawk just sat on him. Almost seemed as though he didnt know what to do. After I finished filming I made the decision to end it. By this ime the magpie was too weak to do anything, half its chest was ripped out and it was obviously in a lot of pain... but thats nature I guess.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

thanks for sharing eddie

@Honigdrohne0221 I let it go on for 45 miins. When it was clear the Magpie had no chance and was suffering, I shot the magpie to end the suffering. The Sparrowhawk did not let go even when I had to push it away with the gun barrel. It stayed with the Magpie for many hours after.

Fantastic footage!

At some moments in the vid, it was as if that sparrowhawk looked straight at you like, "What are YOU looking at?!"

Just curious - did the magpie make it in the end or ever get any kind of upper hand? It looked so hopeless for it. Appreciate the post. Thank you.

@eddiehowland Thats amazing. I never knew a sparrowhawk would try to kill something as big&tough as a magpie! When you shot the magpie did the sparrowhawk come back quickly to feed?

In a way you'd feel like helping the Magpie but on the other hand you know the sparrowhawks gotta eat too! Awesome video btw :)

@Eloshly If you think that then presumably you agree that someone should "catch" you everytime you eat a meal?

Thank you - I apreciate that.

I don't know whether i would have quite worded it like that but you are absolutely right!...My message to that Magpie is 'WHAT GOES AROUND,COMES AROUND'!

never seen like this before... thanks for the upload

amazing clip! i just saw a sparrowhawk in my tiny, paved back yard. i googled 'sparrowhawk' and this was the first clip that came up. now i'm just having a giggle at the outraged responses.

Great footage, I do love Sparrs........

So do all Sparrowhawks grip onto the birds head while ripping its feathers out?

What would you have done?

Magpie: "let me go, I'll never kill baby bunnies again I promise.''

Fantastic footage. I have a sparrow hawk at my stable yard, and though have seen it hunting woodpeckers and found its discarded meals when I disturb it, I am yet to see an actual kill. Thanks for sharing!

@DumpYourTelevision Dont quite understand your question. It was the same magpie all throughout the footage. It was shot over approc 45 mins. I am a professional cameraman, hence the various angles and editing. It wasnt planned, it just happenned in my garden, and yes, the sparrowhawk was wild..... (and the magpie wasnt just wild, he was bloody furious LOL)

dsmyth1955. Thank you for your comments on my filming. Much apreciated. Eddie Howland

Thanks. It's bit different to the sort of filming / photography i usually do.

@eddiehowland so how did it end?? did you kill the magpie or did the hawk manage to do so? it looked like it was a juvenile magpie, still the hawk hat serious trouble to kill it... dont think they usually hunt prey of that size. He really risked to get injured by the magpie. thanks for the post!

Amazing work thanks for sharing

@newcome880 Of course its unusual!!! Thats what makes it a great piece of film!! I dont usually film birds either. You only need to see my other videos on here to see what I usually do! Can't make out if your critisising my video or just curious.

Amazing video. I had one in my garden today that had brought down a jackdaw. They tussled in the garden for a few minutes but the jackdaw managed to escape. The kids wanted me to go and chase it away but it's nature. Not my place to interfere

@BEALZABOZO Thanks for that. But it was shot on an average camera - I just know how to use it. It's like saying A good book must have been written on a good typewriter. Or a nice cake must have been baked in a good oven.

Amazing camera work!

I did say in earlier comments I did shoot the Magpie when i realised it had no chance. However, this is nature, so how long should you leave it before you intervene?

He's like SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME FINISH MY MEAL !!!

So, how did it end?

@bigcatdetective what do you mean, you'd have liked to see the flight?

@1ukjunglednbraver Someone told mr (maybe on a comment on here) that it was a young sparrowhawk and didnt really know what it was doing. Dont know if thsts right.

@TherymasterWidnes Yes it did.

Did the magpie get away or did it get eaten

That´s some seriously good camerawork.

@feniblog I let it go on for 45 miins. When it was clear the Magpie had no chance and was suffering, I shot the magpie to end the suffering. The Sparrowhawk did not let go even when I had to push it away with the gun barrel. It stayed with the Magpie for many hours after.

thank you.

@eddiehowland i was thinking that exactlymyself, you knew exactly what you were doing and had a nice zoom

@eddiehowland After watching the entire clip, I wondered how it ended--looked almost like a stalemate? Nice camera work, appreciate the video and audio.

we had a sparrow hawk do this in our garden, wasn't pretty but its a rare thing to see in person, nice work getting your camera on it!

@angof Thanks for that

How did it end??

@eddiehowland Thank you. I'll definitely check out your website, we could work on a project I have on my other channel maybe. Ill be in touch and thanks again.

@scrubrug No, five years later its still there, lol. Seriously, yes it does.

So did the bird actually get eaten or get away?

@DonPechito Thanks for that. Yup, Right place at the right time.... My little back garden! Eddie.

That sparrowhawk as asperations/delusions of being a Goshawk