The unexpected visitors – identified by church member and keen birdwatcher Jeff Elliott – brought delight to those left in the church and the children couldn’t believe what they were seeing as the majestic bird swooped and soared amongst the high rafters of the church.
After the initial spectacle of what had happened, our thoughts turned toward the welfare of this beautiful bird. The church was cleared of all the people so as not to unduly frighten the animal.
We made a call to the RSPB hotline; they put us through to the RSPCA. They gave advice on how best to encourage the hawk out of the building. The advice was to clear the building open the windows and entice the bird out with small pieces of raw chicken.
A quick trip to a local shop on the Leigh Road brought back the chicken. Although the church has extremely large windows, none of them opened in a way that would allow a bird to fly through. We eventually found 2 windows at each end of the church that we could lift out. We laid some of the chicken in front of them and hoped our winged friend would go to them and feel the breeze coming from the outside world.
Although the chicken wasn’t up to the standard she was used to, the Sparrowhawk eventually left it’s perch above the organ pipes, flew over the pews, past the big screen projector and out, tucking it’s wings together as it bobbed out the window into the Leigh-on-Sea sky around 2 hours after it first came in.
Robin Hammond, LRBC member and church caretaker said “With a name like Robin, I was naturally a little cautious of sharing the same space with a bird whose prey is small birds! You never know what surprises a visit to church will bring. It was great to be able to help the hawk safely back to where it belongs”
Senior Minister of LRBC Rev Steven Hembery said, “We have an open door policy at our church where all are welcome to joins us – but these visitors certainly did surprise us – maybe next week will be singing ‘Oh! for the wings of a dove!”.
What became of the Ring Necked Dove? The little fella was found in the church vestibule and was helped unharmed back into the great outdoors with the help of a table cloth, dropped over it’s head.
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