Discouraging hawks?

[Gil Martin]

On some of the buildings in town, the property owners put toy rubber snakes on the roof and the birds tend to stay away. Never tried it, but the folks I talked to say it works. I would prefer to put a few cats in the area. All the best...
Gil

[popplecop]

Skeet, I don't know how old you are but Raptors have been protected by Federal law since at least back in the 30s. The Great Horned Owl was the last raptor added in 1972 as I remember, the day of the "chicken hawk" is long gone and doubt if it will ever return. In the grand scheme of bird and small mamal populations raptors are not the reason for low populations. All we have to do is look in the mirror to find the culpirt.

[skeet]

Well I have advertisement from the 40's and 50's showing the sportsman taking aim at hawks etc..and I do remember hunters shooting hawks even in the 60's. And you are of course right..we should take the blame for the loss of habitat for the gamebirds etc in this country..but part of the blame lies right on the lack of reduction of predators. Not just hawks owls and foxes...All predators including possums coons feral cats and running free dogs. Unhappily..without a bit of help the quail didn't fair well on the CReP acres I had. After reducing all of the above..the critters rebounded beautifully. I even had a Horned owl in the mid 60's. Crows hated it..So I shot them to protect the owl. He was really hard to keep..feeding was time consuming. That owl hated everything. Finally turned him loose. He hung around home for the longest time

[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......

[Nulle]

I started hunting in the 50's and you had better not shoot a hawk or owl in my state back then. Maybe the smarter people then me should change the laws and get some of these birds thinned out and I would be all for that. I swear everytime I see a hawk flying around in my grouse hunting area but I sure am not going to break the law and shoot it.
They do not help the upland population as with the fox but like was said "people" has caused more damage in upland populations then any of these critters.

[skeet]

The bald Eagle has been Federally protected since 1940 and the Golden since 1962. To the best of my Knowledge the hawks and owls etc were protected at a bit later time frame..at least federally. Think the last to be listed under the Migratory treaty or the ESL was the Great Horned owl

[Nulle]

I am betting on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and sent an email to the Fish and WIldlife Service and they are supposed to get back to me today.

[skeet]

[QUOTE=Mr. 16 gauge;340001]If I'm not mistaken, don't hawks EAT snakes? I might just be putting out a dinner invitation if I do that.

Hawks eak snakes for certain. I have seen many snakes taken by them. In particular one caught a very large black snake near my barn...a kinda pet snake I think. Most amazing thing about 'em is when they kill 'em they seem to not wriggle around very much like snakes do when humans kill 'em.. Don't know why. Heck I even saw a Kestrel catch and eat a garter snake. They are tiny falcons. I raised one of them one time..Fell off a grain elevator at our Skeet club. He didn't have 50 feathers on him when I found him. That bird would try to scare the heck outta people who came in the house. Also it was definitely not a vegan...He liked STEAK..chicken necks and hamburger. We kept him for more than a year. He would sit on our shoulders in the evening. Watch TV We got that darn bird in a local bird program and he learned to live in the wild. but every now and then he'd hit us up for some easy meals

[Nulle]

Had one of them little guys myself (dont tell the Feds lol) they are a neat bird.
Well speaking of Feds. they have not got back to me yet (not a supprise). I am darn curious myself about the hawk protection now. If nothing else we got this part of the site up and running again lol

[rainydays]

In our part of the state, the upland birds are getting hit hard by our ongoing severe weather. On the other hand the hawks are really fattening up on pheasants and grouse.

[Larryjk]

rainydays, Are the pheasants and grouse catching heck NE of Washburn? That is where I like to hunt in Oct. A winter that starts with wet snow on the vegetation that turns to ice followed by a few blizzards will give you a lot of dead birds. Really hate to see that happen.

[Larryjk]

skeet, I had a Cooper's hawk when I was a school kid in the early 50s. He was a real charmer, especially if you were dumb enough to stick your finger where he could get at it with beak or claw. Had him about 4 months and my mother turned him loose so she could stop doctoring my fingers. Beautiful little bird, but meaner than heck.

[skeet]

Larry..that little bird I had had manners with the family..with anyone else coming in the house he just had to try to scare 'em. Would fly through the house heading right at the visitor ..miss by inches every time. The horned owl had absolutely no manners.. I was a bit older and kept the fangers away. That owl was nasty. After shootin about 300 crows over him I turned him loose..caught all the rats on the place with traps and fed 'em to the owl..even killed a few skwerls and chipmunks. That sucker ate all of em. The horned owls around here have literally wiped out the (half tame) skwerls on the place here.. Coopers Hawks are fairly good size but they don't weigh much like most hawks..and that Horned owl wasn't nothing but feathers skin and bones...but still nasty and you really needed a leather cuff when ya carried him on your arm..Sharp feet. and ya needed him hooded too

[rainydays]

Originally Posted by Larryjk

rainydays, Are the pheasants and grouse catching heck NE of Washburn? That is where I like to hunt in Oct. A winter that starts with wet snow on the vegetation that turns to ice followed by a few blizzards will give you a lot of dead birds. Really hate to see that happen.

I hate to say it, but the birds are really catching hell. Winter has been extremely relentless so far this winter. Well below zero again today and another 8" of snow. So far this winter we've had around 50" of snow and two days with temps. over 32 degrees and we are only just getting into February. I sure hope they get a break soon, but its not looking good for them. Oh, I went to HS in Washburn way back when. Some nice folks there.

[skeet]

Finally found the date that the hawks and owls were listed in the migratory treaty. It was 1972 or 1973....until that time there was no federal protection on hawks or owls other than the Bald(1940) and Golden eagles(1963). Some birds like the peregrine Falcon enjoyed ESL listing though. And there may have been some state laws protecting raptors