On Sunday afternoon, my husband screamed for me to come to see a bird in the garden.

It was a large sparrowhawk which had killed a poor little dove and was plucking it on the lawn.

It took a lot of shouting and banging things with my hands to make it leave and then it went off with the dove in its beak.

I telephoned friends in Havant, who say this has happened to them.

Would this be someone's captive bird or is it wild?

I have had birds in my garden for years and, last year, a dove built a nest and had two lots of chicks.

Why aren't these birds of prey out on the moors? Why have we got to have them in our back gardens now?

-Mrs B.B.Williams, Goldstone Crescent, Hove