ON the odd occasion, I have found a cluster of feathers on my lawn and assumed a cat had killed a bird.

But one morning I saw a hawk ripping a blackbird to shreds.

Recent reports show breeders of racing pigeons are up in arms because the activity of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has served to encourage the proliferation of birds of prey - which can make short work of a racing pigeon.

My neighbour breeds canaries and racing pigeons.

Hawks have penetrated the netting of the canaries' aviary and several of my neighbour's pigeons have been lost, killed in flight.

He has partly overcome this problem by putting a large model of an owl on the roof of his outhouse, which deters hawks and they keep their distance.

Jack Robinson,

Redcar Ave, Cleveleys.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.