Earlier today, I lost two more kit birds to Hawks. These mark the 24th and 25th confirmed lost kit birds since July and we're not even at the height of the BOP season yet.
The losses included a young Blue Baldhead Blackburn that was still squeaking and a mature Black Baldhead Oddside that I have had high hopes for awhile. These came from two different kits. One would think after suffering a loss in one kit, the next kit out would be home free, but it's not so.
In the meantime, following the second kill, another Cooper's Hawk appeared in a tree out back to eyeball the birds in the lofts.
The Black Bald was mostly James Turner blood and had previously been hit by a Peregrine hen and was lucky enough (at the time, at least) to have been simply drilled into the ground opposed to being snatched or cut up by talons. The bird had since grown pretty hawkwise and had avoided several other attacks by promptly flying to ground or flying into thickly leaved trees to avoid attack.
Ultimately, if something is not done about the Bird of Prey problem, it will probably eventually mean the extinction of the true Birmingham Roller pigeon, as well as other types of performing tumbler pigeons, due to the fact that Birds of Prey always tend to seek out the best birds in a kit. As a consequence, many successful roller breeders have chosen to simply give up instead of being defenseless as these over-protected winged demons proceed to cut their kits to pieces. Some of them have even got out of pigeons entirely after it became apparent that even their penned up stock birds were not entirely safe.
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