In my Monday column in The Northern Echo, I featured a picture taken by my neighbour, Ron Twigg, of a bird of prey catching a pigeon.

It was a little gruesome but I took the view it was nature in action and not nearly as bloody as the kind of thing you see on a David Attenborough programme when a lion gets to grips with a wildebeest.

Anyway, the killer was described as a sparrowhawk but there is now a suggestion that it might be a rarer goshawk.

Not being a twitcher of any note, I'd be grateful for any expert insight into what's been chasing the pigeons in my garden in Hurworth-on-Tees.

Ron reckons it was approximately 16 inches from head to tail and had a golden eye.