hawks - on borrowed time???

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We had a hawk swoop down over the girls just the other day.Ds was next to the run an I was in a neighboring garden bed.Being out there seems to do little good unless you are watching and then yelling to scare them off.Very annoying because we have lots to do,and my ds would blame me if anyone got eaten.

We recently had big black birds that flew over and swooped down for days.Turned out they were turkey vultures who smelled a rotting groundhog in the woods.I don't think they eat the live birds,but they sure can scare them!
 
I saw the hawk again this morning and got within 10 feet of it , saw nothing but black , no other coloration anywhere , and it's definately a hawk , an import maby ? It was standing on the ground next to a fence inside the pen , I noted a piece of moss on the fence a little lower than the hawk'e head and after it was gone I measured the hieght of the moss ,, it was 22" off the dirt .
Luckey for me it only seems to attack at twilight so I can be home when it happens . , I drove some nails at an angle up through the 2 posts that I have seen it setting on so maby that will take away the perch . This makes 5 times I have seen it on the ground inside the pen but have only lost 1 chicken it keeps coming back to feed on the 1 killed bird .
 
I see hawks fly over the chicken yard almost every day. They apparently live in the tall trees maybe 200' from the chickens. I have never seen a hawk take a chicken, or even fly very close.

I guess there is other food here they prefer.
 
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a huge solid black hawk

That sounds more like a buzzard.

I dont know of any species of hawks that are black AND live in your area
There is one species in the South West US and Northern Mexico​

Unless you have a common black hawk that's way out of it's usual range (it is possible), then yeah, it was probably either a vulture or a raven. Although some hawks do look very black against the sky and have a lot of black coloring. It's really unusual for a vulture to attack live prey though.....could have been a raven, although I've never even heard of them attacking chickens.
hmm.png
 
A hawk flew down at my girls (about 5 foot away from me) a couple of weeks ago and when he got down to them, they ran and he called off the deal and swooped back up to the tree. He watched for a while, while we yelled and cussed him and we haven't seen any since. There are plenty of hawks in our neighborhood and they don't seem to bother my girls. My girls seem to hide under trees and in the bushes, but I do worry more with fall approaching.
 
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Sounds like a Black Vulture, yes they will kill birds, also eat dead . reason it keeps eating on the same bird. Not like the turkey vulture, which will not kill ,and feed on dead animals only.

Black Vulture are in you area too...........all black ,non redhead . turkeys vulture have bare redheads.

The Black is also about 22 in tall
 
Sounds like a Black Vulture, yes they will kill birds, also eat dead . reason it keeps eating on the same bird. Not like the turkey vulture, which will not kill ,and feed on dead animals only.

Black Vulture are in you area too...........all black ,non redhead . turkeys vulture have bare redheads.

The Black is also about 22 in tall

Seriously? Seems like black vultures are pretty rare, and only live in a certain area, but I never knew they ate live birds!​
 
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Not that I know of , havn't ever seen any nor heard any stories of any by the old folks . Now there are a few over in the swamp below Waycross Ga , but that's 100 miles away and a wildlife management aera , with ideal conditions there I doubt any would stray this far .
 

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