20200124 A cheering bird to catch on a dull afternoon

This young Sparrowhawk thudded in to my net on Head Down 24th January 2020 while I was extracting an awkward greenfinch from a separate net close by (their heads are exactly the size of the superfine net meshes). I tucked the bird I was working on back into the net and ran.

These heart-shaped spots (sometimes called ‘arrow-shaped) give me especial pleasure because the only other bird that comes to mind as showing them is a real favourite, the Great Knot. In that species the flanks of the summer plumage bird have large and to me endearing black heart-shaped spots. There must be other species also, please let me know.