The animal on the cover of High Performance MySQL is a sparrow hawk (Accipiter
nisus), a small woodland member of the falcon family found in Eurasia and North
Africa. Sparrow hawks have a long tail and short wings; males are bluish-gray with a
light brown breast, and females are more brown-gray and have an almost fully white
breast. Males are normally somewhat smaller (11 inches) than females (15 inches).
Sparrow hawks live in coniferous woods and feed on small mammals, insects, and
birds. They nest in trees and sometimes on cliff ledges. At the beginning of the
summer, the female lays four to six white eggs, blotched red and brown, in a nest
made in the boughs of the tallest tree available. The male feeds the female and their
Like all hawks, the sparrow hawk is capable of bursts of high speed in flight. Whether
soaring or gliding, the sparrow hawk has a characteristic flap-flap-glide action; its
large tail enables the hawk to twist and turn effortlessly in and out of cover.