• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Raptor! (1 Viewer)

WTXaviphile

Active member
I've been feeding birds just about every day for 4 months, and more than once per day during the snow and cold snap.

Mostly house sparrows and eurasian collared doves, but some white winged doves too, and a pair of curvebilled thrashers that live in my cactus and lately, wonder of wonders, three pyrrhuloxia and one cardinal that have shown up regularly.

Appearance by other species too. All in all a fun hobby for one who spends most of the time at home looking after a centenarian. Amazing what wildlife you can see out the back door in a medium-size city.

Well, the cardinal didn't show up this morning. Only one pyrrhuloxia. Lot of house sparrows, some doves. A seething mass of sparrows this morning with house finches mixed in.

About 11 a.m. I looked out the window of the kitchen door toward the feeders to see if the cardinal was there and saw a single largish bird perching on a limb I set up 5 feet from the ground near the feeders. Suspicions were confirmed by binos. Hawk!

Got pics that I will download and share. Looks like a Cooper's or a Sharp-shinned. Cooper's hawk most likely since they are not averse to towns.

Delighted, but worried about possible casualties.

Is it common to attract a hawk by feeding birds? And am I luring birds into ambush?
 
? . .Is it common to attract a hawk by feeding birds? And am I luring birds into ambush?

Yes it is and yes you are. Comes with the territory, I'm afraid. What you can do to minimize the damage is to site the feeders near bushes or other cover into which the small fry can flee when the hawks appear. In my own yard in Reno, where I get regular visits by at least 2 Cooper's Hawks, I've built a brush pile for the purpose and I'm sure it helps (though there are still lots of kills).
 
It is common that raptors will be eventually aware of the bird flocks near your feeder and their behaviour there. It is also common that they try to catch their food there when roaming along the gardens as here the sparrowhawks are patroulling them.
I don´t think that you´re luring them into an ambush, as long as there is shrubbery, hedgerow or smaller trees nearby where they can hide when a raptor lies in wait or is surprising them at the feeder.
 
Pics at 11:


Aluminum pail is a swinging feeder with a plastic pie pan inside.



Da nasty boy.

This was taken through a dirty plexiglass window and a dirty glass storm door window. D3100 with an old 1.4 teleconverter and a 40 year old 300mm Nikkor

My first raptor ID. I'm leaning toward sharp-shinned hawk but have yet to consult my Clark & Wheeler guide.
 
Last edited:
This evening as light dims, there are 3 pyrrhuloxia feeding, 2F 1M. They don't tolerate each other's presence at a feeder for one second. Fortunately I have 3 separated feeders in this back yard and one across the street and they can dine separately. What happens though is that one goes over and tries to poach on the other and somebody gets driven off.

Cardinal not seen today.

While the hawk was here the area was birdless except for a lot of sparrowsand LBJs in the pomegranate bushes.
 
Didn't see the hawk again. After three days there was a light snow, and the cardinal returned at 8 a.m. sharp the morning after the snow.

No birds missing as far as I can tell, no signs of avicide like blood or feathers.

There are 3-4 starlings that frequent the utility pole in the alley and a neighbor's tree. No interest in my feeders. If a hawk came around, wouldn't they mob it?

As for the hawk, here are two more photos:

[URL=http://s196.photobucket.com/user/RefractedImage/media/Wildlife/Hawk%20cardinal%20pyrrhuloxias%20041_zpspgb02t5q.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://s196.photobucket.com/user/RefractedImage/media/Wildlife/Hawk%20cardinal%20pyrrhuloxias%20040%202_zpsrfdgwnro.jpg.html][/URL]

I do have questions. The Cooper's differs from the Sharp-shinned not only in the shape of the end of the tail but --

The Cooper's has a wider strip of white at the end of the tail, a larger head, and the color of the crown stops at the nape. As far as these characteristics go, isn't the hawk in my pics more like a Sharp-shinned?

And do Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks interbreed? Could this be a hybrid?

Btw I am surprised and delighted by the wildlife around here. This evening I saw a fox in the alley; that expains a mysterious burrow that was dug on my fenceline last month. Next maybe prairie dogs will move in. And no, this is not on the edge of town. There seems to be more wildlife than back in the 1950s.
 
Last edited:
[]...

No birds missing as far as I can tell, no signs of avicide like blood or feathers.
A Hawk will often just snatch and fly through in one smooth, and mostly silent action, especially with smaller prey. Unless you witness it, you'd have no idea it had happened... no blood or feathers.

There are 3-4 starlings that frequent the utility pole in the alley and a neighbor's tree. No interest in my feeders. If a hawk came around, wouldn't they mob it?
No, they'll just screech and try to get to cover, or freeze and stay silent if they're already in cover. If they do react collectively, they'll just zigzag in flight to try to make it harder for the Hawk to isolate one bird. If/when the Hawk gets a bird, the others will just fly to find cover. I've witnessed this 100s of times over the years, but with Sparrowhawks here in the UK. The only birds that I see consistently mob/harass predators are Corvids (Crows, Jays, Magpies), they'll harass everything from Hawks to Foxes
 
A Hawk will often just snatch and fly through in one smooth, and mostly silent action, especially with smaller prey. Unless you witness it, you'd have no idea it had happened... no blood or feathers.


No, they'll just screech and try to get to cover, or freeze and stay silent if they're already in cover. If they do react collectively, they'll just zigzag in flight to try to make it harder for the Hawk to isolate one bird. If/when the Hawk gets a bird, the others will just fly to find cover. I've witnessed this 100s of times over the years, but with Sparrowhawks here in the UK. The only birds that I see consistently mob/harass predators are Corvids (Crows, Jays, Magpies), they'll harass everything from Hawks to Foxes

Starlings in numbers will mob a Sparrowhawk in the open sky. I've seen that a few times. But not in close country. They just leg it.

John
 
Starlings in numbers will mob a Sparrowhawk in the open sky. I've seen that a few times. But not in close country. They just leg it.

John

Yeah, I knew that, John... although I've never seen it (be great to watch 1000s of Starlings mob a Hawk ;) ). I figured that the 4 Starlings the OP mentioned wouldn't try it on their own though.

I'm not sure what the tipping point is with small birds... like how many does it take to activate the mobbing behaviour? 10? 100? I have seen about a dozen Greenfinches try to discourage a male Sparrowhawk in flight at my local reservoirs; it ignored them and took the one it had it's eye on the whole time.
 
Couple of weeks ago I saw a hawk soaring above the city with 4 smaller birds in pursuit. Don't know if they were starlings. Smaller dark birds. Not grackles. Haven't seen crows in town in ages.

Driving out in the country that how it usually is, a hawk chased by one to three or four smaller birds. Likely red tailed hawk, smaller birds who knows, except that they often look smaller than crows. Rare to see a hawk flying fairly low that is not being harassed.

May be that I've not seen real mobbing behavior. But harassment of hawks is the norm. Hard life for a hawk.
 
To an extent my observations and memory as to smaller birds harassing hawks are an artifact. Driving along at 60 mph I saw hawks sitting on utility poles and sometimes fence posts, but did not and would not have seen them in low flight -- unless they were harried along by a pestering bird or two or four high enough to stand out against the sky -- nor would I remember plain flight as opposed to the David and Goliath spectacle of little birds annoying a big one. But definitely a single small bird has pestered a hawk from above or behind.

This was observed on the Rolling Plains off the Caprock escarpment.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 8 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top