Redtail Hawks

[2dream]

We have young redtailed hawks playing in our yard.
The photo of the hawk sitting on my mail box was taken immediately after it fell off the garbage can. I was laughing so hard I almost missed the pic.

There are two of them. Since one is a good bit larger I am guessing a male and female. These babies are fresh off the nest and new to hunting as I saw yesterday when one pounced on somthing in my yard and then immediately jumped back and started screaming.
All the chickens are closed up in their pens. No free ranging for a while.

 

[smom1976]

my husband mentioned to me that.. they are prob still in the nest.. they dont leave till they are fully skilled at hunting.. he also made a comment that the larger one may actually be the mom unless something happened to the parents.. they should have parents.. meaning if both are babies then that would make 4 around your place..

look out chickens..

we have two hawks that live about 1/2 a block down the street in a big tree.. I have a covered run and only let the babies out for a little while on some days.. but when they fly over ALL the birds (even the wild ones) all stay quiet and it is funny the chickens have a different squak that they use to let everyone know that there is something over head..

I love watching them..

 

[halo]

They are beautiful. I never understand people wanting to kill hawks for hunting chickens. They can't hunt them if you dont put your chickens in a situation where they can be taken. I love raptors, they have a very important part in the food chain. I wish people could appreciate them more.

 

[2dream]

smom1976 - Both parents are still here. They hunt the field behind my house early in the morning and late in the afternoon. These babies were just on their first hunting expedition away from the nest site would be my guess since this is the first time I have seen them.

halo- I love to watch them. I have watched the adults hunting habits for months.

Since I know the hawks hunt early morning and late afternoon around my house when I let my chickens free range I don't let them out until after 10 a.m. and put them back up around 3 in the afternoon.

We have lots of trees in our yard plus bird netting over the chicken run. Usually chickens are not in danger from adult hawks in this situation because there is not enough room to soar and dive. The young hawks will however take a chicken since they will perch lower, and give chase to prey while in the learning stages.

I just keep watch and until the young hawks are more skilled hunters the chickens will stay in their runs.

If I lose and occasional chicken to a hawk - oh well,
as much as I love my chickens I can't bring myself to complain about the hawks. They have lost so much habitat already.

 

[SpottedCrow]

Those look like the juvenile I have in my neighbourhood.
So far he's gotten a blue jay and a racing pigeon that he's felt the need to pluck in my yard. I found the pigeon's head too...lovely...
And he got Miss MoneyPenny, but she was too big to be take out. He was plucking her in place, not like that was gonna take off a ton of weight.

Females are larger than males in redtails.

I keep an ear out...if I don't hear the sparrows, then I know he's around.

 

[Prairie Mary]

Quote:
No one in their right mind gets joy from killing raptors. I assume that those on this forum are partial to feathered friends, in general. However, chickens are birds too. When you live with a number of raptors and see how some proliferate eventually they lose some of that appeal. Don't get me wrong they're still quite incredible!

The (not so) funny thing is that my chickens were more freaked out by being locked up for a morning than they were the evening before after one of their own was taken. I locked them up to keep the hawk from mistaking our yard as a fly-in restaurant. Well, they were not the same sweet chickens when I went out at noon. These are hand raised sweet little girls. They were scared of me and fighting with each other. The coop is not particularly small either.
So because of one hawk, eleven chickens are going to die? . . . or worse, be deprived of a fresh air, sun, bugs, and all the wonders that they enjoy? I pray that the hawks will see the lines and go back to hunting in the huge fields to our north - like they did before we got chickens. However, if not, I may have to give up on chickens. * shudder *
But, thinking further, that means I'm not as important in the food chain as the hawk! We are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Hmmm, we'll see how it goes -

Respectful of raptors too,
Prairie Chick