Appears to be a Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter cirrocephalus). They are a bird of prey. This one looks to be a female. Females are lighter in color. They are from the family Accipitridae. They prey mainly on starlings. They also eat a lot of pigeons.
I suppose we Brits did take the ID a bit casually for non-Europeans! It is actually Accipter nisus. I have attached a Wikipedia entry on this species, which is a fairly common raptor in the UK.
We get a visit every day, often, especially during the winter days around 4 pm, everything panics and then falls silent, in our case the most common victim is collared doves. The sparrow hawk used to fly into the chestnut trees at the back of the garden flushing the birds towards the windows, then picking up the hapless one who hit the glass in a panic to fly through to the front of the house.
I once got a few shots of one eating the outcome on the patio I dashed for the camera and crawled across the carpet took as many photos as I could on the wrong setting and using the last of the batteries, when I sat up it carried on eating glancing through me with the yellow eyes.
when I can get back online with my own computer (our house line is down)I will post some of them too.
