9/13/2023 0 Comments Hawks eating birdsWhen migrating sharpie numbers dropped steeply off Cape May, New Jersey, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, many feared it signaled a declining population. Today’s abundance of backyard prey may be causing some hawks to forgo fall migration. “Today, people come from across the country and the world to join us on the mountain, not just for the annual hawk count, but to cheer on these incredible birds.” Migration Shifts? A few generations ago, people made trips to this site to shoot down as many fall migrants as they could, says Keith Bildstein, the sanctuary’s director of conservation science. New public attitudes toward hawks are evident at what is now Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in eastern Pennsylvania. Outrage at the slaughter, especially sport shooting at key migration points, led lawmakers to finally give the raptors protection under the act in 1972. birds were granted protection in 1918 under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, hawks were not, and they were shot in large numbers. Sharpies, meanwhile, were maligned as songbird killers. During the 1800s and early 1900s, Cooper’s had an overblown reputation among farmers as a “chicken hawk” for preying on domestic chickens. You never would have seen that 30 or 40 years ago.” He says CBC participants today are three times more likely to spot Cooper’s hawks during their annual counts than they were in 1960.Įven before bird feeding became popular, Cooper’s and sharpies were associated with humans-and not in a good way. LeBaron recalls recently driving around Tucson, Arizona, and observing the raptors “just sitting on telephone wires. Adaptable GeneralistsĬooper’s hawks in particular “are adaptable, generalist hunters that have really taken to urban environments,” says Geoff LeBaron, director of the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The hawks hunt small to medium-sized birds, the size of most feeder birds, as well as mice and chipmunks, animals also drawn to feeders to feast on spilled seeds. Members of the genus Accipiter, the two raptors are superb aerialists with long tails and short, rounded wings ideal for quick maneuvers through woodlands-abilities that serve them well in leafy, obstacle-packed backyards. Across much of the country, regrowth of mature trees in suburbs built during the 1960s and 1970s also means more nest sites for forest hawks close to the places where people live.īut a bigger reason for increased urban sightings is the explosive popularity of bird feeding-and both Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks, or “sharpies,” are ideally suited to prey on feeder birds. One reason may be that, thanks to the 1972 ban on DDT (which caused disastrous thinning of the egg shells of raptors and other birds), hawks are faring better overall. “We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of Cooper’s hawks visiting feeders throughout the species’ range,” she says. By 2014, that proportion had grown to 21.9 percent. According to Project Leader Emma Greig, Cooper’s hawks were reported at just 6.4 percent of participants’ feeders in 1989. ![]() Indeed, sharp-shinned (left) and, especially, Cooper’s hawks have adapted so well to human-altered habitats that they now are common at bird feeders nationwide.ĭata from Project FeederWatch, a citizen science program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, confirm what backyard birders have been observing for years. These raptors rocket in with talons-out, surprise attacks on birds that eat seeds. Spotting a carnivorous hawk at a seed feeder is not as surprising as it might sound. The “regulars” include doves, jays, juncos, titmice, cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers-and, every now and then, hawks. Backyard seed feeders draw many of these winged creatures in close. ![]() IN RURAL MARYLAND, our 3.4 acres of oak-dominated woodlands offer a year-round home for a variety of forest birds. ![]() Hawks are capitalizing on the abundance of prey attracted to backyard bird feeders
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