Hawks (1 Viewer)

[Lilidove]

Does anyone know what actually keeps hawks away. I had two nests, one with baby doves and the other with baby house finches. The baby doves left the nest and I saw the mom and the babies walking around on my patio. Then they disappeared. Prior to that, the parent birds had made three nests this spring and several last year. I haven't seen the doves since the babies left the nest. But, as soon as the baby finches were about to fly away, I saw a hawk. A few days later it appeared that one baby was missing. When the parent birds came to feed them, it was apparent they were looking for the missing baby. The next day, they were all gone. The hawk, obviously, got them. Both parent birds continued to visit the nest looking for their babies. It's so sad!!! We took the container down until we can figure out a way to make it so that the birds can enter the container, where they have been building their nests, without the hawk having access to it. Now, today I see the birds have built another nest in an ornament I have hanging from our deck. The first containers were also attached to our deck. I'm afraid that hawk will come back and get these babies. I've seen the hawk in the tree a couple of times since eating my baby birds. Additionally, before all this, the hawk got into a prior dove nest snatching an egg and dropping it on my patio. This darn hawk has been around wreaking havoc for a while. Does anyone know a way of deterring the hawk? I put up a scarecrow, but obviously that didn't work. Any advice is greatly appreciated as I really enjoying watching the birds build their nests, laying their eggs, eggs hatching and baby birds flying away.

 

[MJ73]

I have a great horned owl decoy on my patio. It has a movement activated head, with red eyes. It keeps everything away, minus the hummingbirds. It may be worth a try.

 

[VonMaunder]

As an alternative, try seeing this scenario from the hawk's perspective. This is nature at work, an enviably elegant system in action, despite our sentiments re its apparent brutality. I watched a Winter Wren slam the daylights out of a sizeable lemon-lime colored hairless caterpillar yesterday, this is the way it goes.

 

[nartreb]

Pretty much anything that would scare a hawk would scare the doves and finches more. Small birds survive by staying hidden (and by being numerous enough to absorb frequent losses) so you might have some luck with camouflage netting over your deck, assuming you can't transplant a bunch of trees. Ideally both the nest itself and the approach to the nest from at least two directions would both be hidden from above and from any likely hawk perches. But it may be too late; the hawk already knows your porch is an active nest site.

Actually, there are two things that scare hawks more than finches or doves: doves and house finches are quite tolerant of having people and dogs around. If you spend your days out on the porch or in the yard nearby, that should keep the hawk at a distance.