Hawks are on the move!

I don't guess I realized hawks having a time of year when they are more active than others. I'd like to know more. I did hear an owl for the first time just before dark yesterday.
 
Yes they are! I always have more problems with hawks this time of year than any other time. Unfortunately this is when my fox activity slows down and I'd like to free range more, but now I have the hawks to worry about.
Hi Trish1974. I live in North Central, Ohio and for the second year in a row I've lost a pullet to a hawk, almost exactly a year to the day. Your post makes me wonder if the hawk migration is what is causing my troubles. I usually don't have any issues with daytime predators and my (down to 7 hens from 9 in past two months, other hen died from internally laying) girls free range from dawn to dusk. I didn't know about the hawk migration until recently, and i thought it to be more than a mere coinsidence that I lost two pullets a year apart. Since last Thursday, when a hawk decapitated my beautiful 16 - week-old Blue Ameraucana, the girls have been confined to their coop and run unless one of us is out to keep an eye on them while they free range. While the older three hens seem to be getting back to their daily routines, the four remaining pullets (same hatch day) are still pretty spooked from losing their flock sister, especially one girl that was so terrified by the attack that she ran across about an acre of the property and hid inside an old tree stump. I almost gave up looking for her, thinking the hawk carried her off, but miraculously I just happened to spot her in the stump. I'm really, really hoping this is an isolated event and it was a migrating hawk that has been inflicting this horror on my flock, and not a year-round resident. :fl:fl:fl Plans are already in the works to enlarge the run, in case this situation doesn't improve.
 
Interesting to read this about hawk migration. I just had a hawk today scoping out my chicks, and did a little dive bomb on their (covered) pen. This was only their second day out in their pen (they're 3 1/2 weeks old), so hopefully the hawks will only be a seasonal concern. Scared the pants off of me though to see that big hawk diving at my babies! I think it was a Cooper's Hawk. I'm in the Arizona desert.
 

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