Discouraging hawks?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

On some of the buildings in town, the property owners put toy rubber snakes on the roof and the birds tend to stay away.

If I'm not mistaken, don't hawks EAT snakes? I might just be putting out a dinner invitation if I do that.

I've thought about putting out my owl decoy that I use for crow hunting, but I'm concerned that the pigeons might think it's real and not return!

I think what I will try is putting up a simple scare crow in the garden.....I'll try and move it around every few days, and hopefully it will keep the hawks away from my pigeons and the squirrels away from the sweet corn.

.....and while I am all for bringing back species from the edge of extinction, and reintroducing them into areas that they once inhabited, I think it is quite short sighted for the naturalist and goverment agencies that do so to not have a plan in place to deal with said critters when they rebound (and sometimes with a vengence) and cause problems. In addition the the raptors & wolves, don't forget the American alligator, which now takes a fair toll on people's pets, and have attacked humans as well......