A Red Tailed Hawk vs. A Squirrel

Originally Posted by WhiteShaman

Oh boy! lol
And the hawks hunt during the day while the owls hunt at night so you pretty much can never tie the dog outside for some exercise........lol
Especially if it is a chihuaha!

Spot on WS, this past summer was on the news, a man in one of the chicago suburbs was walking his chihuaha and a 'huge' owl swooped down and grabbed it, the man fought it off, and the dog recoverd. Surprised me ( tho i was glad) it survived because of those deadly efficient talons.

Got to pet a young GH owl once...about 2/3 grown. Rehabbed, and a guest at an earth day doings. He was soooo full of himself.

Local news, some one shot an immature bald eagle this last week. Local facebook friends are outraged. The eagle has been mended, and sent off to a rehab facility, the vet is optomistic about it's full recovery, meaning a most likely release back into the wild. Whoever did it had best hope if any of his buddies witnessed it theier loyalty out weighs thier greed because two rather hefty rewards are being offered. The penalty is 2 years in jail and a 100,000 dollar fine.

i tetavily identified the hawk that visit our birdfeeders in the country as a cooper's hawk...they are considered threatened in Ill.

i saw it do something remarkable one day....when the birds became aware of the hawk they would all refuge in a shrubbly, twiggy bush near the feeder. All the twigs and branches making it impossible for the hawk to catch any of them on the fly. This happened several times. Then one day the hawk took a different approach, it flew straight up above the bush, folded it's wings and did a head first kamakazi dive straight down the middle. it was an explosion of birds out of there. Could see it wiggling thru the wood tangles at the bottom working it's way out. It may have not been effective but it sure was dramatic.

[Silver]

That is too funny, sent! He just got ticked off to the max when they figured out how to avoid becoming his dinner! He probly said to himself what do I have to lose...!

You know Silver, i try to not attribute human intentions to animals, but i have to agree with you, it sure looked like frustration motivation.

By the way, good call on you thinking it might be an owl leaving bits of it's dinner, and WS confirming it,...i didn't know that.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Sentientno1

i tetavily identified the hawk that visit our birdfeeders in the country as a cooper's hawk...they are considered threatened in Ill.

i saw it do something remarkable one day....when the birds became aware of the hawk they would all refuge in a shrubbly, twiggy bush near the feeder. All the twigs and branches making it impossible for the hawk to catch any of them on the fly. This happened several times. Then one day the hawk took a different approach, it flew straight up above the bush, folded it's wings and did a head first kamakazi dive straight down the middle. it was an explosion of birds out of there. Could see it wiggling thru the wood tangles at the bottom working it's way out. It may have not been effective but it sure was dramatic.

In my yard there is a family of bluejays (although not so much this year). There is also doves and little birds of many types and squirrels. I feed them under a long bush so it is not right in the open but the cool thing is in regards to prediators is that the bluejays and the squirrels have it covered. They have lookouts and they have warning calls. When there is a hawk in the area, I can tell by their call. The squirrels do the same things and everybody runs for cover.
So my advice to bird lovers who want to keep the hawk attacks down is to attract bluejays (they love peanuts in shells). They, like crows are unbelievably smart and if you keep them fed they will not attack other birds nests in the yard. That has been my observation.