Hawk

I just signed into this newsgroup, and hope you don'g mind me joining in...
i had 4 red tailed hawks last season (parents and 2 young) hanging about.. i
believe thier nest was back at our pond.. anyhow, darn things swiped 35 of
my chickens... not just young ones either, full sized ... got another 15
or so of my neighbours..

Like you Mike, i am fed up .... I called MNR and they did come out to see
if they could locate the birds, which of course were no where to be seen
that day.. i was told that they were probably just passing through and would
leave before the snow.. that was last fall,.. i have seen atleast one
through out the winter now and then... I was given permission to have it
hunted this spring if the problem continues...


"Mike D." <mikdan7 RemoveThis @comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xNOdnU5hVJ5rLrLfRVn-hw@comcast.com...
> That's what these hawks are doing. They wait in a tree over the coop,
> usually about a hundred feet or more away, and fifty feet up, then when a
> pigeon lands on the coop or the ground around the coop, they swiftly glide
> down onto the bird. The red tailed hawk is large and it quickly overpowers
> the pigeon, but the cooper's hawk is another story, in which the pigeon
has
> somewhat of a fighting chance. T Cooper's Hawk could never have tackled
the
> sea gull that this red tailed hawk was killing. I wish I could find my
> pellet gun, I would b waiting for the hawk LOL. I ain't kidding
though.....I
> am fed up with this raptor. Mike.
>

Pigeons can escape from falcons if they have sufficient warning and if the
pigeon is good at eluding. They try to keep or get above the falcon. As long
as the falcon cannot use altitude to descend on a pigeon, the pigeon has a
good chance( I am particularly referring to homing pigeons, I can't speak
about other breeds because I have the majority of my experience with homing
pigeons). Hawks, such as the red tailed hawk, usually prefer to raid the
pigeon when it is feeding on the ground. We have been having persistent
attack incidents in our yard and on/around our pigeon coop, and the
attacker is usually a Cooper's Hawk. The Cooper's Hawk in our situation is
not much larger than the pigeons he is preying on, and so the cooper's hawk
needs to get his talons onto and into the pigeons body to effect a lethal
grasp. If the pigeon sees him coming, even at the last moment, the pigeon
can react so as to cause the hawk to get a less effective grasp then he was
attempting to get, and this often buys the pigeon enough time for help to
come running in the form of the household dog or one of the loft managers.
At least three times pigeons lives have thus been saved on out premises.
The red tailed hawk, on the other hand, is much larger and stronger. I saw
two red-tailed hawks attacking our birds earlier this year, and the larger
hawk looked as big as a turkey. It seized a pigeon in it's talons and the
bird was dead within seconds. A red tailed hawk can swoop down on a pigeon,
grab it and kill it with it's feet in pretty much one motion, an then lift
off with the dead bird and carry it away. The cooper's hawks we have are not
large or strong enough to do that. All in all, I must say we were fed up
with raptor predation on our flock of pigeons Mike.

PS we had a falcon come to the coop also on day, but he didn't make a kill,
as far as I know. Mike.
"EddieM" <eddie.g.m04 RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:poaYd.7982$C47.3196@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
> > E-Man wrote
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Falcons can catch pigeons at will. Coopers and sharpies have to be a
> > little stealthy. I have had GOS get them like a coop, AND out of the
> > air. I have seen a red-tail chase a roller across open space and sky,
> > and catch it. But they do better when catching them unaware or low and
> > slow. They all have more trouble catching racers than rollers.
> > E-Man
>
>
> At one time, I had one of those rare moments of wishful thinking fancying
> about things I wish I had. I was fascinated with falcons after watching
them
> in Discovery Channel being showcase in some sort of informal documentary
> demonstrating what an awesome fyers they are. They fly high and soar so
> fast that the camera men actually caught them singly clubbed a pigeon to
> death mid-air and then turnaround and flew back to grab the lifeless body
of
> that pigeon as it falls spinning down from the sky with their claws . So
then
> in my flight of fancy, I begun entertaining the thought what it might be
to
> have them as a bird of pet. To love 'em to death and just give 'em
> everything they ask for in life including a handsome coop big enough for a
> table or two.
>
> The problem of course is that I always love pigeons, and in that fantasy I
> had above, I would have several of them strutting themselves in my mind as
> a side show. I actually had it built that their coops would be sitting
side
> by side and back to back, and seeing the falcon swaggering next door in
> a pompous gait all day long. Somewhere along then and no sooner, I came
> to realize that there were some serious problems with these ideas flowing
> out of my head.
>
>
>