My morning

ooo how sad. I remember seeing something similar on the golf course and felt quite sick.

It's heartbreaking isn't it? We had blackbirds nesting in our garden a couple of years ago and magpies took the eggs. Last year, they reared a brood and we were delighted. Then we saw them leave the nest and come down into the garden and were very concerned at how vulnerable they had then become. We came down one morning to find bits of fledgeling blackbirds all over the place. A cat had had them. I have seen magpies take unfledged pigeon chicks out of a nest.

It is horribly hard, but otherwise we'd either be overrun by tiny birds or a lot would die of starvation the way so many released pheasants do.

(Having said that I do hate seeing cats killing birds as they kill for fun.)

I would hate to have seen that.
We know it's natural but we don't want to see it, especially "our" chicks
I discovered yesterday that one of our nest boxes is occupied by a brood of sparrows. The first we've had in the 8-9 yrs the boxes have been up. Keep away magpies !

A couple of years ago I saw a sparrowhawk take a great spotted woodpecker from my garden. We then heard what must have been its orphaned baby calling loudly, its head poking out of the hole, gradually getting weaker, for several days. It was heartbreaking! The nest was very high in a tree on the farmland at the end of my garden.
One year I heard magpies making a terrible racket, only to see my cat sitting in their nest. I called her down and hope she had done no harm.

Similar story here.
Previous years we haven't actually had a nest in our garden but blackbird parents have brought fledglings to us because of the ready top-up food supply, including currants. This year we have a nest.
Whilst ironing this a.m. have watched the pair working on what may be their third attempt at producing a family; I have seen magpies & crows at the nest site over the last 4 to 6 weeks, which may not be well-enough camouflaged from above.
I do hope their enthusiasm is rewarded!

We have occasional visits from a sparrowhawk after the large sparrow colony in our hedge. It's a thick dense mixed hedge so a successful attack is fairly rare. It really is a case of the quick or the dead. We also have magpies nesting in our pine tree but they rarely succeed in attacking 'our' birds as there's plenty of cover in our garden. Our feeders are also next to bushes so birds aren't in the open and vulnerable when feeding. It helps.

The crows fly very high to attack the red kite that regularly fly over here. They make a terrific noise.

Don't kites generally live mostly on carrion? Something to do with their talons being weak.

We have a sparrowhawk calling in regularly ( sometimes gets a small bird, sometimes doesn't). And red kites patrol for unwary pigeons.A pigeon nest was pulled to bits a few weks ago and everything in it was despatched....only found the dead parents lying in the garden, feathers everywhere.Rooks or magpies or jackdaws, who knows?
Nature yes, but unpleasant to see.

Magpies are the worst, I think. When we lived in a town I once saw a group of them swooping down on a cat. So Shysal I wouldn't worry, your cat was probably being brave.
We have some newly hatched chickens, in a small run covered by mesh, and a buzzard is regularly swooping down to see if he can get one.

On my feeder the crows are the only corvids intelligent enough to pull up the filled coconut halves by the string and anchor it with their feet while they feed. The others dangle upside down and aren't always successful. My bird feeder has been very busy recently. A whole jar of Flutter Butter gets emptied in one day, by starlings and tits.

Has anyone else noticed a rise in garden birds feeding and nesting in their gardens this spring? We've put it down to the drought in this area as we have a pond with a small waterfall.

I wish we did get more garden birds, Nfk. We have a bird bath, bird feeders, and regularly put out apples, fruit cake and other goodies on the lawn, but only seem to get sparrows (which I do love), pigeons, magpies and blackbirds on a regular basis. We get very excited if, like the other day, we have a great tit (first one for nearly six years), or a goldfinch of which there are lots around but in spite of putting out niger seed, they don't come down into the garden. . We couldn't move for birds of all kinds in our last garden.

They absolutely love dried meal worms. Buyology sell them for £4.99 a kilo.
Haven't seen them cheaper.

One morning I was sitting having a cuppa at my kitchen table, watching the little birds, sparrows, great tits, blue tits and chaffinches feeding on the bird table. Suddenly, there was a commotion and most of them flew away. Down swooped a sparrow hawk and grabbed one of the remaining great tits. I was shocked, not so much at the catch, but seeing a sparrow hawk so close to the house!

Maybe I could cover the patio with wire netting or something to keep the birds of prey away from my babies. Or something! Or just sit there with a gun in my hand.
After watching the great tits carefully building the nest and feeding the babies it was such a shock. It all happened so quickly.

It is truly grim isn't it - when I hear people extolling the beauties of nature, part of me agrees and part of me wants to point out that it is predicated on survival of the fittest and that can be very cruel indeed.

I once walked along a lane with my DD (about 4, I would think) and we were enjoying the sight of a wee bird hopping along the verge by us, when a cat darted out of the bushes and in a flash made dinner of it. A bit of a harsh lesson for my little one.

I must have been a hardened toddler. Looking out of granny's window, I saw a cat dash past with a chick in its jaws. DM tried to shield my eyes, but I am reputed to have exclaimed, 'Let him chew it!' I think I developed some sensitivity as an adult.

I cannot watch wildlife programs. The other day, I was peering into a nest box in my garden as no one had used it last year. Out shot a tiny bird, which I think was a week and made me jump!

A wren, of course

It makes me doubt if there is a God the way we eat meat and can't the animals be vegetarian?

It us upsetting but we should not really interfere with this.
Some time ago we watched a Sparrow Hawk demolishing a wood pigeon. A pile of feathers is all you get left. Sparrow hawks are beautiful efficient killing machine.

However we still have far too many big fat pigeons. I have to angle the feeders so that pigeons cannot get to the seed feeders because of their great fat breasts.