WingsOnTheBus
Chirping
We've free-ranged our four birds for more than a year and never had any problems with predators--super-secure coop, always put them in before or just after dark. But two weeks ago, our neighbor who was putting them in couldn't find one, and the next morning there was no trace of her anywhere on the property. She had a tendency to try to sleep outside in the nests she made, so I assumed she had done that again, this time without being found and returned to the coop, and a coyote had found her sometime during the night.
Yesterday, we came home at 10:20 pm to find that another of our birds was missing from the coop. At first I figured she had tried to sleep outside as well, but I looked everywhere I could think of for her and didn't see or hear a thing. When she still wasn't around this morning, at first I assumed a dog or coyote had gotten her, too. But there had only been an hour of darkness before we came home and looked for her--hardly enough time, I thought, for coyotes to have come out. I became nervous that something had picked her off during the day and locked up the other two in their coop.
A few minutes later, my mom called me outside. She had noticed spatters of blood all over the driveway next to our house (photos below). There are a few areas of streaks clustered with spatters and a trail of spatters leading away from the scene. The spatters, however, thin out and do not lead off the edge of the driveway completely. My impression is that of a hawk grabbing her and dragging her while trying to take off with her. If that's what happened, I now suspect our other loss two weeks ago was a similar situation, maybe even with the same hawk.
What do you think?
Yesterday, we came home at 10:20 pm to find that another of our birds was missing from the coop. At first I figured she had tried to sleep outside as well, but I looked everywhere I could think of for her and didn't see or hear a thing. When she still wasn't around this morning, at first I assumed a dog or coyote had gotten her, too. But there had only been an hour of darkness before we came home and looked for her--hardly enough time, I thought, for coyotes to have come out. I became nervous that something had picked her off during the day and locked up the other two in their coop.
A few minutes later, my mom called me outside. She had noticed spatters of blood all over the driveway next to our house (photos below). There are a few areas of streaks clustered with spatters and a trail of spatters leading away from the scene. The spatters, however, thin out and do not lead off the edge of the driveway completely. My impression is that of a hawk grabbing her and dragging her while trying to take off with her. If that's what happened, I now suspect our other loss two weeks ago was a similar situation, maybe even with the same hawk.
What do you think?