There's a hawk in my backyard!

Question

When I fisrt saw the thing it was roosted in my swing set. Now it's going all over the place! We have had a family of wild bunnies living in the woods behind my house for the past couple of years, and now they're dead. Yesterday I found three dead bunnies lieing in the yard. (can you guess who killed them?) And about two weeks ago it killed four little birds near my bird feeder. I took the feeder down, but the hawk keeps coming for food. I want to call animal control but I dought they will help in the small town I live in. Any answers or tips wouild be appriciated. -Thanks

Answer 1

It's doing what a hawk does.  You provided it with food and it came for food.  If you still want to avoid it, there are a few things you can do--none of them fool-proof, but I hope that one of them will work.

1) You can go to wal-mart, target, home depot, or anywhere like that and purchase a fake owl.  These owls are meant for scaring off birds like grackles, pigeons, and mice, but they might work with hawks.  The only problem is is that the owl will also scare off your birds, and rabbits.  The owl will just be fastened to your roof or something like that.

2) You can hire a falconer to come and trap the bird; falconers are always interested in birds like red-tails, ferruginous, and other hawks because they are great hunters.   However, the falconer might not be interested because they already have enough birds, and they might come to take a look at the bird, but decide that they aren't interested.

3) You can just keep doing what you are; avoiding the feeder.  Eventually it will turn to the woods or another area for food.

4) Live with it.  It should be migrating south come September, October, or November, if where you live gets cold.  

Best of luck,

Phoenix

P.S. Just make sure that you don't harm it.  That is illegal and punishable by up to 6 months in federal prison, 500$ fine, or more, if it indeed a raptor, or an endangered species.

Answer 2

spray some water to it, with the hose!

try to scare it away!

Answer 3

shoot it