I'm fed up!! This morning a Sparrow-hawk has taken 2 of our collared doves.. It's carnage out there, with feathers everywhere!! Oh I know they're wild birds (the doves) but they are regular visitors to our garden and as close to tame as they can be and they nest and raise their young in our trees, we know them individually... We've already protected our little birds with caged feeders...so the SH's can't get to them but the Doves and pigeons feed on the ground, and the Sparrowhawks even fly right into the trees and snatch them off the nest!! I know all the argument about it being ''nature'' and the SH's have a right to live too...... I don't care, I'm sick and tired of their murdering attacks and eating the birds alive. It really upsets me!! I want to shoot them..but the bleeding heart do -gooders , would be up in arms...( unintended pun)
Yes, you can't even poison them without the chance of poisoning the ones you want. My mom had a problem with squirrels eating her red bird food, but they lived rurally and eventually took care of it. There are bird traps and if they catch one of the birds you don't want, you could try to eliminate the problem one at a time. Most people don't seem to understand how you can get attached to particular wild bird and want to protect them like a pet.
Holly, I share your feelings about bird predators. House sparrows will enter a bluebird house and kill the bluebirds. Starlings will do the same thing to martins in the gourds. I'm not usually a violent person but I will do what is necessary to protect my birds.
Is the Sparrow Hawk on the endangered species list? If not, it sounds like a clear opportunity to improve on one’s aim with a pellet or BB rifle. Even a near miss might be enough to discourage the predator from seeking it’s prey.
From looking at a few websites, they are not an endangered bird in the UK, BUT, BIRD LOVERS do like them. There is talk on these UK websites about how they kill garden birds.
It’s probably not the same thing but I had a neighbor in Atlanta who faced either the siding on his 150K home being destroyed by a Woodpecker or killing the bird and facing a $500 fine. Woodpeckers are a protected species in Georgia but after the state didn’t wish to do anything with the bird, the foul fowl met it’s demise by the hand of my neighbor. Notably, the guy had to replace some of the cedar siding on his house especially since he used a 12 gauge shotgun to kill the thing but it was either his sanity and back pocket or the bird. The Woodpecker lost. Fortunately, no one reported the sound of a shotgun going off at around 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Seems that the sound of a single shotgun blast was far more preferential than the repetitive and nerve wracking tapping of a Woodpecker searching for it’s meal. At the last report, my 80 years old x-neighbor was sleeping well into the mornings without being awakened by the sound of a miniature jackhammer laying his cedar siding to waste.
The problem there is your neighbor still has whatever attracted the woodpecker in the first place, perhaps termites or carpenter ants. He'll find out in a few years.
No not on the endangered species list....and yep I have the ability to shoot them, trouble is they are so swift, I'd have to sit all day with a BB gun, or air rifle to catch them!!
Maybe you couldl try putting up a cast iron dove in one of the trees as bait. The Hawk swoops down, knocks itself silly on the bait bird, falls on the ground and flops around until you decide what you wish to do with it. You can probably get the cast iron bait bird from ACME courtesy of Wile E. Coyote. Actually, it’s not a bad idea. A lot of people hang up fake owls to keep the rodents away so why not a fake dove to frustrate a hawk?
LOL.. I would like to imagine it would work, and it might if my garden was postage stamp size... but it ain't... ..nice idea tho' Bobby...
Perhaps a net around the area where the small birds are feeding, one that is barely visible. If a swooping hawk hit the net, it would think twice before trying again.
The little birds are safe, they have a squirrel and starling proof cage around their feeders, it's the Big birds, the doves and wood pigeons that feed on the ground or nest in the trees that are the victims..
Shopkeepers in a town near me were having problems with pigeons pooping on the sidewalk in front of their shops. Somebody got the bright idea to put up fake owls around the area to scare the pigeons away. I was driving through town one day and saw pigeons perched on top of one of the owls. ROFLOL!