Do you have them in your area

I am fortunate that I rarely get pestered with them, I have four common buzzards, plenty of seaguls and plenty of crows in my area, when the hawk enters their terratory they get mobbed and this alerts most birds in the area, occasionally one slips under their radar and

i have red kites galore over my lofts and what a beautiful sight they are gliding above the lofts common buzzards kestrels and sparrowhawks .

also a bloody great heron which makes the birds move

ferret wrote:i have red kites galore over my lofts and what a beautiful sight they are gliding above the lofts common buzzards kestrels and sparrowhawks .

also a bloody great heron which makes the birds move

I have flown red kites and they are really elegant birds, you hardly feel them on the glove in fact I have flown most bop, what a lot of people don't understand is apart from young inexperienced bop who may make several strikes at prey, they only hunt when they need to as they have an upper and lower weight which they hunt at and depending on the type it is only a few few ounces
Where they are most predatory is when they are feeding their young as they need a lot more prey to feed their chicks, this ties in with nature when all other birds are rearing their young and sadly for pigeon fanciers this is when they are racing their birds

unfortunately pigeon is one of the richest food sources for bop when rearing youngsters .

Protein 18.47 g
Total Lipids (fat) 23.8 g
Energy 294 kcal

ferret wrote:unfortunately pigeon is one of the richest food sources for bop when rearing youngsters .

Protein 18.47 g
Total Lipids (fat) 23.8 g
Energy 294 kcal

Yep especially well fed racing ones or ones that just sit around my dove cotes, I know a woman that had white fantails in a cote for years she had 19 and within weeks she had none left as a sparrow hawk moved into her area and just picked them off one by one, now that is sad and annoying no matter what side of the fence you are on

feel for the poor woman ,and her birds .
sparrowhawks love or hate them there just out and out killing machines,and sadly all to easy to breed them .

well we dont suffer as they seem to die very quick around here it maybe the climate. the local police wildbird rep seem to be at loss as to why they are found unable to fly very thin and near to death .i beleave its to do with the air pollution from the local brewery ???as they keep locateing hawks there as its right in line flight for welsh birds working home

often see buzzards soaring overhead and the odd sparrowhawk flying past and plenty of magpies around here.have had a small kit of flying rollers and have never been bothered by any bop,but my brother who had garden fantails and lives about half mile away had them all killed by sparrow hawks.....guess ime one of the lucky ones

ribbo wrote:often see buzzards soaring overhead and the odd sparrowhawk flying past and plenty of magpies around here.have had a small kit of flying rollers and have never been bothered by any bop,but my brother who had garden fantails and lives about half mile away had them all killed by sparrow hawks.....guess ime one of the lucky ones

Almost identical to what we have here, we have had only four strikes this year (4 too many) where as a loft less than a mile away gets visits every day from the sparrow hawk