Woodpecker and Sparrowhawk encounter

Autumn leaves going from gold to brown

The single note call of a Great Spotted Woodpecker cuts through the quiet of the winter woodland, I don't bother to lift my binoculars but scan for the bird with my eyes. As I do so I pick up on a fast moving form sliding with barely a wing beat through the tangle of bare branches in the canopy, its broad winged arrow coalesces before me as a monochrome winter silhouette, its small size and shape give it away as a male Sparrowhawk that, no sooner have I identified it, than it has gone, down the slope weaving its way through the tops of the trees. The Woodpecker stops calling and the wood falls quiet again.