25th Hawk loss today

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.

Hawk Deterrents - the Hawk Ball

Racing fancier John Glemser discusses his use of "Hawk Balls" to try to deter hawks from attacking his Racing Pigeons. He remarks that after having done a lot of research, he believes that the placement of shiny objects such CDs helps to prevent hawks from attacking his pigeons.

You can obtain commercially produced "bird deterrents" from Amazon.com such as those below. Do they work? Who knows? But, it can't hurt to try.

Hawks Aren't Just A Seasonal Problem

I had written earlier about flying its at or near sunset to avoid losses from birds of prey.

While my #1 kit that is being flown on this schedule has still not suffered any losses, my #2 kit, which has been flying before that kit has taken quite a pounding over the last week and a half.

At the moment, I have a big bitch Cooper's Hawk inflicting damage on my #2 kit. Over the last week she has taken three key birds from this kit, including a Black Self cock, a Red Badge hen and a younger Red Beard (both LaRue-Scouzafava line). It also just so happens that these three were proving to be the most promising three birds in the kit. The Black Self was just starting to show some short, sharp rolls, was very active (3 to 4 TPM) and displaying all the signs of developing into a good fast spinner that would be an asset in any kit. The Red Badge hen was also showing some good rolling and was always there on the same turn as the Black Self, while the Red Beard (a full niece or nephew to the Red Badge), was showing signs of developing into a good deep one. 

This particular Cooper hen is a real stone cold killer. While most Cooper's typically hunt from an ambush, this particular hen has literally been appearing from almost out of nowhere when the kit is at a medium height and has apparently made all her kills on a single pass. The Red Beard was the first to "get it" and was taken on almost horizontal attack after it had rolled about 40 feet out of the kit. When the Black Self cock was hit, I had just happened to have looked away from the kit for a few seconds, only to look back and see that the kit had exploded into 5 or 6 different directions. By time I spotted the Cooper, she was headed off to the southwest with the Black Self dangling from her talons. She got the Red Badge hen today and even though the kit had reacted to the threat, the Cooper's horizontal attack on the Badge was so effortless that I doubt if she even knew what had hit her. As with the other two kills, the Cooper flew off a very long way to the SW with her kill and vanished off in the distance. Most Cooper's Hawks, especially the males, are usually incapable of hauling a pigeon or similar sized prey away much of a distance. This is why in most cases, if a fancier can follow the hawk, their bird can  sometimes be saved before the hawk actually kills and consumes it.

Somebody hand me a box of Kleenex, please.

The only good news out of this is that last week she was chasing a very promising crested Blue Splash Blackburn hen around and missed her several days in a row despite the ease that the big bitch Cooper hen has been killing her kitmates off with. This Blackburn hen is a very strong flier and a deep roller, but not very active. As a result, she is also incredibly stable despite the fact the fact that she is a pretty a deep roller. As I had mentioned before in my article on the Blackburns, there seems to be a tendency for them to have retained some of the flying characteristics of the old Central Asiatic Sharpshooters that some early breeders had been crossing into their Birminghams in the late 19th century. This Blackburn hen can literally turn and accelerate on a dime into a short downward hooking dive. She's no Donek, but she has been able to outmaneuver this Cooper hen every time to the extent that she seems to no longer want any part of her. At this point, I think she's probably earned the right to move up into the #1 kit, just in case the big bitch Cooper happens to get in a lucky strike.

Some pigeon fanciers (all of them non pigeon fliers, by the way), will tell you that Birds of Prey are just a seasonal problem and that they are always at their worst in the Fall when they are migrating. Don't believe it.

Speaking of birds that can fly circles around Birds of Prey, check out Robert Lockwood's Vieshians while they chase the local birds of prey around. Pity the Vieshians aren't Rollers.

Flying Roller Pigeons At Sunset To Prevent Hawk Losses

I came across an interesting video put together by Danny Joe Humphrey some time ago that seems to have gone mostly unnoticed by the Roller fraternity. As some of you probably know, Mr. Humphrey is mostly well known as a breeder of Color Pigeons or German Toys and used to produce an internet show called "Color Pigeons and More". He also breeds and flies a few rollers from James Turner.

 

Like everyone else, Mr. Humphrey has suffered many roller losses at the hands of Birds of Prey. What he had to say on the subject, despite it being only a very short video and having only a few hundred views, is rather important and could very well save thousands of valuable rollers if Roller breeders would bother to listen.

 

 

In the video, Mr. Humphrey explains that in his youth, when Crow hunting was a popular past time, it was well known that the best time to hunt crows was when the birds were getting ready to roost for the night, about an hour before sunset. At this time in the day, they started to settle in for the evening and were very easily hunted because of their inactivity during those hours.

 

Mr. Humphrey also deduced that hawks and falcons share similar roosting habits to crows and therefore also start become inactive near sunset. He then goes on to explain that he has been flying his kit at sunset and has not, in that time experienced a bird of prey attack on his kit.

 

Now I firmly believe that Mr. Humphrey is on to something here.

 

I have bred and flown Rollers of several breeds, as well other types of flying pigeons since the 1970's. My first problems with Birds of Prey began in late 1988 and reached devastating proportions by the Fall of 1990. During the 1990's I tried everything under the sun to try to either reduce, or least offset the losses in an effort to actually salvage something resembling a holdover kit. Some years those efforts included simply flooding the sky with as many young birds each year as I could. In 1988, I banded 50 or so young birds, which increased to 75 in 1989 and to 125 in 1990. By 1991, I was breeding 150 youngsters per year. By 1994, that number had increased to 350 young birds per year. That's a lot of young birds to try to fly out, but it seemed that the more birds I bred, the more birds I lost and come the next breeding season, no matter how many young birds I had bred, I still only had a few dozen of them left. Generally speaking, the best performers always "got it first" from the falcons. And what's more, I wasn't the only one suffering from those types of losses. Every breeder I spoke to was experiencing the same type of troubles. Contrary to the claims of non-roller fliers, these hawk losses were not simply limited to the migration season.

 

Interestingly enough, based on my best recollections of those years, the vast majority of my losses took place either early in the morning (when Big Bitch Cooper was patiently waiting for the first kit to go out the door) or at the height of the afternoon. I cannot recall a single incident of a bird of prey attack having started within the hour before sunset, though I do have a few memories of Peregrine Falcons pushing kits up "into the pins" in the very late afternoon to try to wear them down. I never lost many this way, because as twilight rolled around, they always seemed to break off their attacks and leave the areas. 95% of the time I could drop the kit as dusk rolled in and even when I couldn't, I never lost any to overflies unless they were squeakers and not completely used to flying at excessive heights.

 

Needless to say, my personal experience certainly jives with Mr. Humphrey's suggestion to fly your kit at sunset to avoid hawk losses.

 

So what do ornithology experts have to say on the subject of Bird of Prey roosting behavior?

 

First things first, there are two basic groups of birds that exist due to evolution and adaptation. The largest group are those which are considered "Diurnal", which is according to one source defined as "birds that are principally active during the day with all major life activities, including courtship, nesting, feeding, preening and other behaviors. Most species of birds, including songbirds, hummingbirds, waterfowl and raptors other than owls are considered diurnal. Diurnal birds roost and sleep at night and become active again when the sun rises." In contrast to this is the small group which are Nocturnal, which are principally active at night. While Owls are nocturnal, most birds of prey fall into the diurnal category. As well, though many diurnal bird species often adopt nocturnal habits during their migrations and have been witnessed flying at high altitudes during the darkest of night, as Raptors like hawks and falcons rely on daytime thermal currents to migrate, they do not adopt these types of nocturnal migration habits that species like Canada Geese do. In fact, it is believed that many diurnal birds often travel great distances at night while migrating as a means to help avoid predation by Birds of Prey.

 

That being said, Peregrine Falcons have been known to feed their young cached kills late at night, though no research has uncovered them actually hunting at night.

 

This being said, it is a scientific fact that the nemesis of our Rollers is mainly a diurnal bird, and the same as pigeons, have a natural instinct to go to roost for the night.

 

The question then becomes, at what point in the day does this instinct to go to roost take its effect?

 

According to scientific research, the answer to this question may actually differ by species.

 

In a study by Roth and Lima published in 2007, entitled "The predatory behavior of wintering Accipiter hawks: temporal patterns in activity of predators and prey", it was noted that the roosting behavior of the Sharp-Shin Hawk and the Cooper's Hawk differed greatly in that "During the winters of 1999–2004, twenty-one sharp-shinned hawks (A. striatus) and ten Cooper’s hawks (A. cooperii) were intensively radio tracked in rural and urban habitats in western Indiana, USA. Cooper’s hawks left roost before sunrise and usually returned to roost around sunset, while sharp-shinned hawks left roost at sunrise or later and returned to roost well before sunset."

 

You can read the full paper here.

 

While it appears that the Cooper's Hawk may hunt later into the day than the Sharp-Shinned Hawk, they still seek out their roosts by sunset. It is suggested that the reason the smaller Sharp-Shinned Hawk may seek out the protection of its roost earlier than the Cooper's, is that due to its smaller size, it is far more vulnerable to attack by Owls which start to become active during dusk.

 

Unfortunately, while there are numerous studies about the hunting behavior of Hawks and Falcons, very little research has apparently been done to document their peak hours of hunting. 

 

That being said, Mr. Humphrey's suggestion to fly your kit around sunset and his experience doing so does seem to jive with what research has been done on the subject. At bare minimum, the suggestion is good enough to see if it helps cut losses and in fact, I've been utilizing the advice for a long time now with some success now. The only hawk encounter I've seen was a female Cooper who cut up one of my hens in an outdoor individual pair coop. The hen is recovering and the hawk has not returned. Knock on wood.

 

Obviously, some roller fanciers will be a little leery at first to fly their kits relatively late in the day, but just the same as the hawks do, our rollers have a natural urge to go to roost at night. Provided you cut the feed a little to insure that they only fly for 15 to 20 minutes, the risk of loss would be a very minimal one until the birds get used to flying at this time.

 

That being said, it would still be best to train your squeakers at a more reasonable time in the day to reduce the risk for those that always seem to insist on ranging away from the loft a great distance at first from spending the night out on a rooftop somewhere. Once the young kit is used to flying a fancier could gradually start to get them more used to flying later in the day.

 

Try it; it may just save those good ones for you.

 

~ Jack