Starling with nine lives?

[Sinned]

Nowt to do with skirts but then this is off topic. For a few days now a sparrowhawk has visited our garden to drink from one of our water dishes. We weren't sure what it was at first because it was so quick in flying off that it was just a brown blur. Then MOH saw that it had a grey back and brown chest and wings so we identified it tentatively as a sparrowhawk. Yesterday I was sat at my computer with the patio doors behind me and there was a loud bang behind me. I turned around and MOH dashed in from the kitchen and there on the paving stones was the sparrowhawk looking a bit dazed ( definite identification this time ). It appeared to have something in one of its claws but it had its back to us so we couldn't see what. It then turned around as it had obviously seen us and glared at us for a minute. We could see that it had another bird in its claw but we didn't intervene because we thought that the bird would be dead. The sparrowhawk then recovered somewhat and flew off but left its prey behind which we now saw was a young starling. The starling stood around for a few minutes looking around and we didn't know if it was injured or not. Eventually the starling flew into a tree and then away. One lucky bird! But it was so magnificent to see the majesty and might of the sparrowhawk and we will probably never be so close to a wild one again. It's one of those occasions where the picture gets imprinted on your mind. By the time we got the camera the bird had flown off.

Just as a footnote - don't know if it was from the hawk hitting the glass or the starling being caught but one of them left a load of sh*t all up the door which we had to clean up!!!!