Bald eagle looking for lunch..

[bills]

Sitting in my home office yesterday, working on the computer, when I hear this high pitch whistling going on. Hmm I know that sound! I rush outside and run into my Wife who also recognized the sound. Around to the chicken coop we go. Sure enough all the hens have crowded inside their smaller covered run.
We look around for the source of the sound and sure enough there is a huge bald eagle sitting about 30 feet up in a tree.
My Wife is also worried about our cat, so she starts running around the property looking for him. She finds him, and he is obviously in a very excited state. (You can tell if you have owned cats before).

So now I wonder if he was after the cat, or the chickens? It flew away within a few minutes, as I suppose our presence may have disrupted his hunt. Usually the eagles are all down by the river, (1 block away) feasting on salmon carcasses, but the recent heavy rains have caused the river to swell, and has washed the carcasses away. Never had an issue with them before, but it is winter, so I expect the eagles will be looking for alternative food sources.

I hope like heck it's not back again today. You can't shoot them by law, so how do you protect your animals from them?

 

[featherbaby]

I was told by another BYC'r, SewingCA, to hang old CDs from fishing line in the trees so that the wind will move them around and "flash" the raptors. Also, you can string fishing line between two tall stakes that can be moved around. Do about 6 pairs and move them around every few days, criss-crossing them over where the chickens run. If the bird touches it on one of his dives, he won't do it again. It doesn't entrap them, but they are afraid of getting tangled up and it is a wonderful deterrent. Those of us with ponds of goldfish or koi have been doing this for a long time to protect our fish from ospreys and eagles.

Then of course there's the most common method:

"When in danger, fear or doubt,
run in circles......S%#t and shout"