Well, it seems that a hawk is now using my bird feeding area for his/her hunting ground. I have seen it in a tree with a kill as well as finding blood in the snow; also much less usage of the feeders lately. This morning I pulled in all the feeders and what I am looking for is this: How long before mr/mrs hawk moves on and is there anything I can do to make this happen a bit faster? My concern is also for the my cats that sometimes are in that same area-although they don't go out so much at this time of year.
I get the feathers&blood evidence a couple times a season. It happens but not too often. They are easy pickin's for the hawks and I have a lot of them with a few large fields next to my house. I wouldn't worry about it. On the other hand, my wife and I gave up trying to keep a cat many years ago, as they kept disappearing, but we never found the culprint/reason. We think maybe fox or Fisher Cats we have in the area. But, my neighbor has 2 feral barn cats and they seem to survive just fine and they spend lots of their time hunting at my house too, but they leave the feeder area alone. Unles your cats are house cats that rarely go outisde, I wouldn't worry about it. Stay warm.. we're over halfway there!
The majority of hawks will kill in open space. Hang the feeders amoung trees. Don't give them the perfect kill zone. Hawks and large birds of prey LOVE to hang out along the tree lines with open spaces. Its why there are so many along rivers and major highways with grass medians.
I wish hawks were legal to thin out. I see a lot more of them now than I did 10 years ago, and as a rabbit hunter who see a lot less of them than 10 years ago, I blame hawks more than coyotes. Regardless, I highly doubt a hawk would go after a cat when there's little birds around. He's much more likely to get hurt messing with a cat.
Hmm, different food for thought here. The feeders are on the treeline and not really in the open. As said, we saw the hawk once a few weeks ago and then this morning when there were a good dozen small birds feeding on the ground, I saw them all fly off in 1 direction and then saw a very quick bird come out of the woods and take a sharp left in the same direction. It happened so fast I did not see where the chasing bird started from (up above from a tree branch I would imagine) but by the very sharp turn it took and the whitish bottom...it was most likely a hawk. Regarding the cats, they are outdoor cats all summer and more inside in the winter months so they know the woods. I am always aware that they might not come back and that would stink, but they are not meant to be indoor cats by their personality. The male is a 13lb tomcat and a bird would have a hard time with him, the female is a 8-9lb mix with some Bengal in her and has the Bengal attitude as well so she is a scrapper-dont let that cute "innocent" face with big eyes fool you.
Ugh...hawks are birds of prey...they will grab cats, small dogs or whatever they can...never underestimate a hawk..thwy are beautiful birds...but can be dangerous around small pets
You know, the bird feeder serves the purpose of allowing you to witness the wildlife that is active in your area. The ones that will eat the food you serve up any way. Like it or not, those same hawks are hunting those same birds away from your feeder. You're just not seeing it. I find mostly finches get taken. There's an awful lot of them. The one that swoops thru here occasionally also takes mice, chipmunks, moles and baby rabbits. As does the neighbor's cat. I figure there's a yin/yan to it that isn't gonna get disturbed despite any good willed intentions.
Very true, but if I am creating a McDonalds Fly Thru for the hawk, maybe I should find a way to charge for it
GoPro and a Youtube channel ? Don't quit your day job. Even if you can get the hawk to field the gopro
yeah, good point. My feeders are between my deck and my woodpiles and there are a couple large fir trees there and it isn't wide open from high above. So there is some natural protection. Open space where the hawks can roost 90 feet up in the tres and then swoop down, prolly not good.
We have a red tailed hawk nest in the woods behind our house and two outdoor cats. One cat is a maine coon cat mix, really big and ornery. We adopted his from a shelter. It was his last hope. He would hiss and scratch anybody that came near him. (What would you do if somebody trapped you in the woods, put you in a cage, "fixed" you, and put you up for adoption?) Put on my fireplace gloves and brought him home. Took a while but he became a great lap cat. The two cats would hunt together. The little guy would flush small animals out of the wood piles and onto the driveway. The big guy would snag them in the driveway. He would always let the little guy eat first, then have his fill. One day they were hunting. Big guy charging up the driveway after a mouse. He suddenly stops and in an instant a shadow overtakes him from above and behind. One of the red tailed hawks grabbed the mouse and ran. By the looks of it, it was probably not the first time it happened. It is always interesting to watch the mother teach the young how to fly between the branches and hunt. One day, after two thumps in the house, we found a young hawk and a sparrow on our deck. The sparrow tried to duck into a cave to evade the hawk. The cave was a window. After a few minutes the sparrow flew away. The hawk was hurt and we got him help. It took a few weeks but he was also returned to the wild in our back yard. The hawks are opportunist hunters and like the open space of our driveway. If you don't have bird feeders they are going to find the birds anyway. You are just not going to see it as often. My wife wanted to put some bird feeders on our deck. I put an end to that by mentioning how much it would save us on cat food... KaptJaq
are you sure it is hawks all the time??? we have had similar issues and finally seen one of the local cats with a kill.
Around here it is the hawks, cats, foxes, raccoon stealing eggs and young animals from nests,... It is part of nature and keeps everything in balance. KaptJaq
Out here in farm country we have a lot of hawks. mostly red tails. While it is illegal to just go out and shoot them if they are killing live stock or pets and you should happen to get caught shooting 1 they will leave you alone. I have shot several over the years while they were picking the bones of my chickens that they had kilt. The hawks aren't near as big of a problem though as feral cats that roam the country side. They do more harm any more around here than any other predator animal. When I see a roaming cat in my yard it gets a lead sleeping pill. As for your bird feeders I would leave them up and continue to feed the wild birds. Them getting killed by a hawk is just another part of nature as God intended it to be. And, those local birds get used to having a food supply and when you just take it away from them you might just as well let the hawks eat them.
Around here the animal rescue people have taken care of that. They trap as many feral cats as the can, neuter them and try to find them homes. They also make any cat owner feel like a criminal if they don't get the cat fixed and keep it indoors. They try to blame cats, feral and outdoor pets, for the shrinking population of song birds. They have been so successful that their breeding of domestic short hair tabbys is now a profitable business. They charge $125 to "adopt" one of their kittens. Then they put all sorts on conditions on the adoption, it must be neutered, it must stay indoors, etc... and they reserve the right to come and check. If you are not following their rules they can cancel the "adoption." What they don't say is that the song bird population that is shrinking is an invasive species brought over from Europe. They also forget that feral cats do no more harm than the wild cats that were hunted to extinction and the foxes that have been pushed to near extinction used to do. There are a lot of different sides to each story. KaptJaq
Well, that may be true in your local but you have to under stand that I am a half a continent away with a very different type of environment for the critters of the earth. Then to add to it, living out in the middle of nowhere those who have domesticated dogs and cats feel as if it is a good place to drive to and throw those unwanted animals out the door of their car to fend for themselves cuz of coarse "all them country folks will give it a home". Maybe I am misunderstanding your reply as is often the case in cyberspace but we don't have animal control to catch and sterilize wild cats or dogs. We also have a very healthy population of Yotes and fox, coons and skunks, and the sightings of cougars has also been going up. I don't go around shooting strays just at a whim in fact I don't like to kill any critter unless it can be consumed as food for my family or friends. But some times you have to do what you gotta do. Just as an example. This spring the day before Mothers day we had a stray show up in our wind break in the middle of a very nasty rain storm. The dog was dumped sometime the week earlier as I found out later some of my neighbors had seen it roaming the roads looking for a place to live. We took the dog in and as it turns out it was a pruebread Brittney that was not chipped, no one in a 10 mile radius that we contacted including the local vet clinics were missing an animal. The doggie is house broke had only 1 bad habit. She wanted to be loved and give love. She has been a major soarse of comfort to my wife these past 8 months and hope to have her around for some time to live and let live. She even lets my wife doll her up for Halloween. Like I said, I may have really mis inturepeded your reply but in the case that I didn't, please, and I mean that sincerely, please don't chastise me on how we take care of problems in my neck of the woods. And buy the way, Song birds can be good eatin if you is hungry.
Butcher, can't understand why someone would have dropped off that dog! More likely a lost hunting dog, no? Either way, I would have done the same thing and taken it in...except dressing it up! And just think of the "re-homing" and "adoption" fees you saved on!
We were losing too many birds to hawks. I had cut a bunch of brush so the birds could not escape to the trees quick enough. So I drug in a small tree that had a root ball on it (from the neighbors) and then the next two years we threw our Christmas trees on top. WE also let some of the brush grow back up. WE do still lose some to hawks but they don't get many. What our biggest problem is amounts to cats. It doesn't matter what kind of cat, they just go after birds. Cats also like to roam at night. It is easy for them to climb trees and that is where birds roost. We do try to thin them out a bit. At least one of the neighbors moved out and they had over 20 cats. All ran loose.
