CITY sparrowhawks fare better than those living in the country, a study said to be the first of its kind has found.

Researchers from RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Raptor Study Group examined differences between populations of the birds in Edinburgh and in the Ayrshire countryside over four years from 2009 to 2012.

They found that city hawks had “significantly greater” breeding success than the rural ones, while territories in the urban environment were occupied far more frequently than those in the country.

Of the 20 breeding attempts that failed, only two were recorded in the urban study area, with the rest in the rural area.

Michael Thornton, lead author of the paper and member of the Lothian and Borders Raptor Study Group, said: “This study clearly shows that urban green spaces such as parks, gardens and golf courses provide both suitable nest sites and an abundance of prey species to support high breeding success in this charismatic predator, and it is important that we protect these areas for urban wildlife and for our own health and wellbeing.”

In total, 195 sparrowhawk pairs were located in the two study areas across 117 separate sites or “territories”. Researchers found the number of nest desertions was much higher in the country, and it was this complete failure of numerous nests that caused lower breeding success in the rural sparrowhawk population.

Staffan Roos, senior conservation scientist with RSPB Scotland and one of the authors of the paper, said: “Gardens and parks hold large numbers of songbirds, which these raptors feed on, and the structure of urban landscapes in Edinburgh and other European cities, with parks and woodlands right next to private gardens, provides an ideal hunting environment for sparrowhawks.

“We would like to see further studies carried out, with nests being monitored by camera, to learn more about the impacts of food abundance on these birds in different parts of Scotland.

“The more we know about various wildlife species, the more we can do to protect and conserve them in future.”

The sparrowhawk population crashed in the UK due to the use of organo-chlorine pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused egg shell thinning and breakage.

However after the gradual withdrawal of these pesticides, the population made a rapid recovery in the 1980s.

The birds were among the first raptors to colonise urban areas in Europe, with this happening in the UK in the 1980s.

The European sparrowhawk population is estimated to be up to 582,000 pairs with the UK holding around 35,000 pairs, 12,000 of those in Scotland.

The paper has been published in the journal Ecoscience.