I’d consider this a quite rare sighting over our usual Rampton (Cambridgeshire) stamping ground but we saw a large hawk flying over a sheep-laden field adjacent to the spinney. Looked like a big Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) and indeed that is what it is. Not a Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), wrong underwing patterning, apparently.
One of my RSPB bird books actually describes the Goshawk species as “essentially a giant version of the Sparrowhawk” but also points out that a large female Sparrowhawk would be about the same size as a small male Goshawk. Both birds are adapted for the same niche: hunting prey on the wing in woodland. So, not a new one for us, after all; we’ve had Sparrowhawks in the garden nomming on the tits).
