I was sooo dismayed about this hawk hunting my songbirds at my feeders. Felt like such a traitor - like I wasn't looking after my birdies properly or well enough. Even had nightmares last night about it.

He managed to nail two that I know of for sure. These pics are from the first kill. The second one was right in on the table under my porch roof - and he sat there and was de-feathering it when I saw him and dashed out there. Then he flew off with it. No pics of that one.

These pics are taken inside my wood shed and where the landlord keeps his herbicide sprayer. That's what the tank and the gauge are.

When I first saw him, he was sitting up on the gate the landlord had there and I was about 12 feet away from him, waving my arms and telling him to get lost. But he just sat there and looked at me. Because the sunlight was behind him, I could mostly just see his silhouette and didn't realize he had a bird already, but couldn't figure out why he wouldn't leave. Then I saw the bird, which I think was a female house finch. Then he picked up that little bird and brought it INTO the shed and much closer to me - only about 8-10 feet away from me.

Like an idiot, I was snapping pics like mad and forgot to compensate for the sunlight behind him while he was still on the gate. This first pic was shot with the natural light that just happened to hit him the right way, and was the only one that turned out while he was on the gate ... the finch is still alive in this pic ...



The rest of the pics are taken when he moved inside the shed out of the sunlight behind him and I finally figured out to turn the flash on. What a dummy I am, eh??? They are rather self-explanatory and if you look closely, you can even see the feathers flying before he decided it was chow time. After he de-feathered it, he picked it up and took off with it, so these are all I managed to get ... but I am please with how they turned out. All I have done with these is resize and a touch of sharpening. No crops or colour adjustments at all....


















Soooo ... because of my less than perfect night's sleep, I went online this morning to see if I could find some way to discourage him or to protect the little birds better. Not a lot of help there, mostly they say this is Ma Nature at her finest - and the survival of the best of the species. They said 85% of all raptors don't survive the first year and that they miss far more prey than they actually get. (Two in one day was MORE than enough for me!) The websites say the ones they catch are usually older or sick - or just not paying attention.

So, I guess I will just have to accept that this is how it is supposed to be - or else take down my feeders and let the little birds fend for themselves for a month or so. By then, supposedly, the hawk will have found a new hunting ground and moved off, and I can put the feeders back up. They say the little birds will come back.

What to do ... what to do ......

I am guessing this is the Cooper's Hawk that was here before ... but it may be a Sharp-shinned Hawk. If anyone knows for absolutely positive which one it is, please let me know. I used http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/accipiterIDtable.htm to try to decide, but it looks like a little of each. Thanks.

Cheers,
Sue

_________________
The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind.
- Carly Simon

Nature ... red in tooth and claw. Sorry, I'm sure you did not want to feed
this guy, but bird-feeders seem to be called an 'attractive nuisance'. If you
attract large numbers of birds, you will probably attract predators too. As
far as I know, there's no solution.

The yellow eyes mean it's a juvenile. Based on the even belly splotches,
and because the head and nape all look much the same to me, and the
eyes look centered on the head, I'd say Sharp-shinned (I'm no expert).
Oh, and the tail feathers all look the same length to me too (so SSH).

This is what I'd expect to see at a bird-feeder, and they are the only places
I see SSHs. It has long legs which I can see too, but apparently that's not
very reliable. You are right, survival rates for juveniles are dismal. While I
have heard of Cooper's using humans for cover, I didn't know SSHs did the
same (getting mobbed by the smaller birds is a real possibility).

On the other hand, those are some pretty nice pictures. In the first one,
the cloudy pupil is due to an eye membrane that they use for protection
(so I think you are right, the prey is probably still alive at that point). If
you are able to see things from their point of view, they have to work
fairly hard for the dinner. Thank you fro seeing beyond your pain and
sharing these pictures.

Thank you, Goony, for replying. I will now label him as a SSH, especially since there have been quite a few viewers and nobody has disagreed with you

He was back again late this afternoon, looking for dinner again, but this time he went away empty-handed (or should that be empty-clawed?) At least, I am assuming this is the same bird ... (insert rolling eyes here).

Here is he today, sitting up on the top of my gate - about 12 feet from the house!!! He was not too bothered about me taking pics - even after I came right out of the house and was about 10 feet away from him. He's not very shy!!!





Thanks.

Cheers,
Sue

_________________
The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind.
- Carly Simon

I agree with your Sharp-shinned Hawk identification goony. Keep in mind that the crown/nape/back coloration field marks only work in adults though. In immatures like this bird, they vary far too much for that to be useful.

From what I can infer about the size of this bird, I would bet that it is a female. It looks quite large.

I know that it's hard to think about the agony these birds must feel in their final moments. But that's the way it is for them, and often for us. In many ways, observing this ever present fact of life is a great way to embrace this and come to terms with it.

The idea that feeding stations make it easier for natural predators to catch their prey is a bit of a stretch. No one has ever been able to show that raptors eat more when raiding bird feeders, than when hunting in the wild.

The prey appears to be a House Sparrow? If that's correct, I would praise the Sharp-shinned Hawk for it's choice in a meal. Hose Sparrows are introduced from Europe, and displace and/or kill native cavity nesters. If you have Violet-green Swallows nearby, Hose Sparrows will probably negatively affect their numbers more than this species of hawk ever will.

Thanks for your thoughts Guy.



In one of the Sibley books there's a bit where a SSH has a fatal collision
with a picture window. In the wild birds don't have to deal with windows
(although I would expect people with bird feeders to take precautions for
this), so maybe you could make a feeble argument the other way ...