Quote:
I'm in the Echo Lake area. Not right on the lake; we have a 5-acre plot bordering a green belt. If you don't have bantams, you don't need to worry about Cooper's hawks that much. They're fairly small in terms of hawks. They can certainly grab/kill chicks, but full-grown LF should be fine. The Belgians are quite small and make a nice target. Coopers don't rely on stealth like Red Tails do. They are very fast and maneuverable. As far as they're concerned, they just need to zip in, grab the prey and zip out before the giant monster gets to them. I much prefer dealing with the Red Tails because they are not nearly so bold. During baby bird season, the crows often tell me when there's one around.
I'm sorry that you lost a bird to the coyotes. I've lost at least one (a favorite) to them. We fenced all around the property, but they can get over the fence fairly easily. I've seen one wandering around in the field and staring at my girls in their pen twice in the past four or so months. I bought a shotgun so that I can greet them properly next time they show up. Whenever the girls come out to free-range, I'm always out with them, scanning the sky and making lots of talk-noise so that predators know I'm there. They might not care that I'm there, but hopefully they do. Though I might not scare the Coopers away simply with my presence, I can still scare them away when they come out. They've wrestled with my Belgians before. My birds survived the last two of three struggles and it is my goal to remain at one loss. We're going to be putting up hawk deterrents in the next few weeks.
Echo Lake I think of as being more suburban??? than us. So are the cooper's hawk the ones that stake out bird feeders? My brother in Bonney Lake has had those, but I don't think I've seen them. Wow - they are something - how awful to need to be that vigilant overhead. are you planning aerial netting? I do have LF, so guess the cooper's won't be after them. The bald eagles are very active right now - but I thought they need a lot of clearing to come in & take off. One of the neighbors almost lost a chicken to a bald eagle - he saw it take the chicken, but thought it got dropped when the eagle crashed into a tree (they aren't very agile...) The chicken returned several days later -he was amazed - I'm amazed something else didn't get it in the interim. I think I need a shotgun & lessons (for the coyotes - not the eagles!)... We have crows, and some ravens as well that tend to 'dog' the hawks & eagles too. The chickens seem to respond to the Stellars Jays' distress calls sometimes too. Nice there's a watchful community of sorts. Need to supplement with geese, guardian dogs, donkeys & llamas. -- o & abut 640 acres! LOL
edited to fix typo
HOWDEEEEEE ! ! !
