Hottest Day of the Year

Beautiful! Yes, its a kestrel.
How nice to see laburnum - its so much less planted these days as folk are afraid of its poison.
I hope all your lovely plants will be OK while you are away, with all this dry weather. Have a great break!

have a lovely holiday.
the garden is looking super. :o)

The garden is looking great and a lovely piece of wooded green you have at the front. I think your visitor is a Sparrowhawk, not a Kestrel who is a prettier bird with dark eyes, rather than the yellow or orange eyes of the Sparrowhawk. This one is probably a female, these are bigger than the males and catch bigger prey, up to pigeon size. We've had them trying to get to young chicks in a run on the lawn, very determined birds, it took ages to frighten her off she was so fixated!

Looking good ...area looks nice and peaceful

its a Sparrow Hawk (male) much smaller than the female and you very rarely see at this time of year she will be sitting on eggs.

Gg

Luckily we don't seem to get sparrowhawks so I didn't recognise it.

We were really pleased to spot the sparrow hawk as we only usually get the common garden birds. So thank you Gg,Honeysuckle and Steragram. I have looked it up in my bird identification book and you are right ?????
Seaburngirl did you notice my lovely yellow irises which you kindly gave me last year

Marjorie

Your garden is looking lovely. We had a Sparrow Hawk as a frequent visitor at my last garden. In fact I think it helped sell the house lol. As the buyers were looking around, it landed on the fence and buyers spotted it and were over the moon seeing it. :-).

Yes, definitely a sparrowhawk with that stripey tummy!

Have a lovely holiday Marjorie :)

Lovely plants you have Marjories your peony is gorgeous.

Thank you for all your lovely comments. Be back in June after we have cruised around the British Isles.
Marjorie

Have a great time safe journey.

Thank you Thrupennybit

Bon voyage ....

Gg

:o)) Your welcome Marjories.

Safe travels x

Marjorie your garden is really lovely, I envy you the green area to look out onto instead of a busy road, I don't get the Sparrowhawk visiting but they really are a striking looking bird, we do have the Red Kites flying over and if they come too low our local bird population very soon chase them off..Lovely photo's..