Dealing with the COOPER HAWK !

[old dutch loft]

i chatted with a fellow that raised alot of rollers and he complained to a local warden who just shrugged him off,with a warning lol so he called the feds and they mailed him a permit,he shot the hawk and that was that.you do have a right to protect personal property from predation in any form.

[SmithFamilyLoft]

Could just be my wishful thinking, but since I have embraced Ole Mister Cooper who flies overhead several times a day, it ocurred to me, that it has been years since he actually caught any of my birds ! Almost without fail, Mister Cooper is trying his best to catch one of my YB team, and for quite some time, I realized he has never really gotten close since was it 2005 ?

I never let birds out which are not in good health and condition, so quite frankly they are simply too fast. The only time he ever gets close is when they are immature and thankfully, there are only a few weeks that he even has a chance.

I find myself looking forward to his visits....he can turn a quick hour loft fly...turn into a marathon lasting for hours ! Why bother road training ? And trapping ? He helps get them in real fast, no sitting outside on a line or rooftop, no sir re.....

I wish I would have thought of this new "Training Aid" sooner !

[Barn Pigeon]

Last Saturday as I was waiting for race birds to return from 150 mile race I have three coopers and 2 redtails come by. I have lost 1 bantam hen and two pullets in a weeks time. My racers where flying around this evening and I walked around back and Mr. Cooper was sitting in a tree in backyard just waitng to make a move. I knew I had a few hawks in the area ,but didn't know it was this bad.

[SmithFamilyLoft]

The other day Ole Mister Cooper managed to break the relative period of calm, by grabbing onto my star racer for a moment. The bird will recover, but the racing career is now over for this particular bird. I wish there was a simple easy solution to protect our birds, but the answer is not yet forthcoming.

[Pidgey]

Warren,

Have you ever read one of my posts about getting a local, licensed falconer to trap the bird? That's what I did and I've had a relative calm year since then.

Incidentally, you're never completely safe even in your birds can fly circles around a Cooper's because there's a racer here in my town that had one trap into his actual loft. He found several birds dead inside, caught the hawk inside the loft and hauled it 30 miles away to release. I guess when the hawk followed a homer through the trap, it went wild killing for the fun of it.

Pidgey

[SmithFamilyLoft]

So far in 2006 there have been four Coopers which have been trapped and hauled away, and normally a few weeks later another Cooper will move in...
So the trapping may not totally resolve the problem. Mother Nature must have intended for the Cooper to keep the pigeon population in check.

[re lee]

Coopers are here to stay it looks like now. And will probably breed even more. Dealing with them And flying pigeons will become an art by its self. Only thing Is train the birds hard to stay up and when they drop the have to be taught to trap fast. Less birds will be taken this way. When loft flying. Now races. The old cooper can chase them down And there really is not an answer for that The pigeon will have to renew its escape methods Kind of rebuild its instinct To survive. And trapping the cooper may become a common thing.

[christina11]

I have only had one of my pigeons taken by a hawk, a coopers hawk that is.

Sadly she was also my favourit pigeon.

I have heard of using shiney metal balls too.

This is my meathod of keeping hawks away.. I don't use all of them.

Make crow calls every so often as loud as you can ... as crows dive on hawks alot and bother them away so hawks are usualy carefull not to desturb them.

Attract crows or put up fake statues of crows around or even play of tape of crow calls very loud.

Feed and attract other birds like starlings,sprarrows ect.. this way there are more birds around to be on the look out for hawks, for me as soon as a sparrow makes a warning call all my pigeons look up and around for hawks.

Last option... keep those tenis balls stored up!

[Birdmom4ever]

In my neck of the woods even racing homer enthusiasts keep their birds in until next spring. Racing season just finished a couple weeks ago, as I understand it, and they won't fly again until training next year's birds. Mind you, I'm not a racing homer fancier but a show pigeon breeder. I gave up on flying my rollers a long time ago because we have so many hawks around and rollers are easy pickings for Cooper's hawks. I don't think there's any sure-fire way to protect your pigeons from hawks if you fly them.

just wanting to put the cooper, sharp shined hawk numbers into perspective a little from a bird watchers eye view here .. capturing and relocating these birds of prey really doesnt help much during the migration as their numbers are so great at this time of year that they are quicky replaced by others as warren already pointed out in his earlier post ...I mention sharp shines too because they are just a little smaller in size then a coopers hawk but many do mistake them for the coopers as they are almost identical otherwise ,yet they can easily take a pigeon just the same . I am attaching a site of a place not far off from where I live called hawk mountian ,they do a fall migration bird of prey count on a daily basis and its posted right on the site so you can see how many ofeach kind passed by each day,todays count being 283 Sharp-shinned Hawk and 33 Cooper's Hawk ,33 doesnt sound like a whole lot compared to the sharpies but you have to remember that these birds are passing in one area alone so imagine if that was your back yard on any given day kinda scarey if you ask me but thats what your up against when thinking of the safety of your pigeons I myself have given up flying my birds for the year as there isnt a day that goes by that I dont see a hawk or two flying thru my yard every time I am out there during the day ,morning ,noon or nite lost to many already and its just time to hang up the wings til next year for me

sorry i forgot the site hehe here ya go take care all
http://www.hawkmountain.org/default.shtml

[Feather]

I saw a large hawk the other day being pursued by many crows. I haven't even seen many crows around here lately. I thought that maybe it was a red tail hawk, as the coloring was rusts and browns. It landed on the top of the telephone pole, and as I looked closer, I saw that it's beak did not resemble the red tail, but instead came straight out from it's head and then turned down. More like an eagle. The bird was small for an eagle.

I ran inside the house to get the binoculars, and when I returned it was gone. There are no eagles around here, but about an hours drive away 40,200 acres have burned due to an arsonist. The fire was just contained yesterday. The scary part was my rabbits, Yorke, and chihuahuas were all out in the yard.

Could it have been an eagle? What bird that resembles a large hawk has a beak like this?

Are there small eagles that look like the underside of their wings are painted?

Feather

[Baby Goose]

Before I even signed up for Pigeon Talk I had taken GOOSE outside to fly a little bit. He had never gone any distance and I wasnt even sure he could fly. I was "walking him" in my front yard when I heard flapping, he jumped up and raced for the front door of the house (which was CLOSED) and swished away and out of sight along with the HAWK...

It rained all week, I searched and finally faced the reality that he was most likely DINNER...I had just lost a family dog 2 days prior and built a little grave out side. I just COULDNT bear to put another little grave out there for GOOSE, well....


My oldest daughter came to visit and about 2 hours into her stay she mentioned that my neighbor directly behind me also must have a PET PIGEON... (laughs) My husband looked at me and simply said... "GET IN THE TRUCK"

Sure enough, he was hiding out in a garage. The people didnt know what to think of him, but knew he must be tame. I walked into their garage and he flew right to my arm.... MY BABY GOOSE!~

Since I am not a trainer, or have racers, my PIGEON will never get to be BAIT again, he just doesnt have the pertection of a flock nor the learned skills.
Sometimes I feel like I limited his life by making him a pet. Afterall... a bird that will never SOAR the skyline. It saddens me, but I also know that It is my job to keep him safe.

[Feather]

Well said Baby Goose!

I'm thinking that because of the fire, that there are preditors out there that I am not trained for. I have never had to worry about my full grown rabbits or little dogs. But our natural preditors don't wear a beak like that. And we are responsible for their well being.

On the other hand it is horrific what is happening to the animals in that fire.

Feather

[LuisO]

Hey Everyone,

I've been reading the threads and thought I'd might mention a really cool yet scary experiance I had Yesterday afternoon.

I dropped my aunt off at work. She works at the Harris Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. It is a bayfront resort with a huge bridge that goes over the water to another small city. Well I went out there to check the fishermen out and when I looked into the air I could not believe my eyes.

Just 10-15 miles away from my loft are Peregrine Falcones! It was the very first time I ever saw one in the wild. My blood was pumping with excitment and horror. These birds are not afraid. I hope to catch them on video and uploading the videos to YouTube so that everyone can watch.

I couldn't believe seeing them hunt and dive 100+ miles right in front of my eyes at SEAGULLS! I cant wait to get photos up!

O, should I worry any? LOL

Luis