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Friday, February 04, 2022

Sad, but hawks do hunt small animals

STOCKTON (CBS13) — Hunted from the sky, a puppy was plucked from its own backyard — the target of a hungry hawk. 

The Yorkie was an emotional support animal for a 9-year-old Stockton girl.

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More than once I've seen hawks and even Black Buzzards circling over Legal Lucy when we were out for our morning walk.

26 comments:

  1. I don't know what size hawks are in USA, but here in Scotland it would take a full size eagle to fly off with a puppy.
    Lucy on her walks.
    Maybe the hawks and buzzards are watching for whatever wee rodent or small bird you and Lucy spring from cover.
    Like the birds following a ploughman (plowman)

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    1. I've seen a huge barn owl and many barred owls hovering along over my old dog, walking at night. She weighed 45 lbs, I couldn't figure out if they were sizing her up for dinner or watching for her to scare up a rabbit.

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  2. Hawks can be hunted too.

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    1. The only way that they can legally is if they kill livestock. Where you can get into trouble is when they ask you to prove that is the hawk killing the livestock if you don’t kill it while in the act of killing livestock. Best scenario? The three S’s.
      Buddha

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  3. Are you certain the buzzards were eyeballing Legal Lucy and not you?

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    1. I'm too skinny, not worth their effort.

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    2. Buzzards, vultures be scavengers. You and Lucy aren't dead enough. They mainly eat carrion, but very rarely eat newborn mammals. They do soar and grid search for the dead from sun up to sun down.
      It's the hawks and eagles that are nicely camouflaged in the tree tops eyeballing ya that you need to concern yourself with. Owls, only at night. I saw a great horned owl almost grab my neighbor's Havanese one evening while chatting it up.
      Presently, I'm blessed to have an Eastern Screech Owl in my front yard no more than 15 feet from my house and driveway. It's a hollowed out maple with two large holes. She perches on the edge of the hole, sleeping all day completely camouflaged. The blue Jays, titmouses and even the chickadees collaborate and try to attack her in groups. They literally gang up on her. The demon squirrels chased her away from her clutch last March but she came back in Sept. She's a wee little owl. Weighs less than a stick and a half of butter. All feathers, eyes and talons. She might of gone after us if she had stayed and had her clutch there. She just started trilling for her lifelong mate. He hangs out in the other hollowed out hole for a few weeks, only at night. My husband calls him, "her backdoor man". I laugh everytime.
      ~Sinepuxent Serf

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    3. Actually, I posted an article just a couple months ago about how there was an explosion in the population of Kentucky Black Buzzards in my general area and as a result, they've started preying on small mammals.

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    4. Well hells bells, Kenny. Live and learn. Now you got me going to my birding sites to identify these ugly birds vs. the Turkey vultures. Looks like I'm in their range too. Yuck.

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  4. Every pet on the fucking planet is an "emotional support animal".

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    1. Not anymore.
      She graduated to "dietary support animal" for a hawk.

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  5. I recall one worker who was tasked with cleaning out an owl nest from a pair of owls that had been killed. She says she found 21 collars in that nest.

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  6. The hawk population is getting out of hand. Decades ago they and eagles were endangered, but they have rebounded to the point they are endangering other species.
    Of course the liberals blame the drop in population of those species on climate change, but just north of me is a bat whacker farm. The population of prairie chickens has learned to use the windmills as protection.

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  7. Pretty common in Alaska:

    1) https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19930619&slug=1707273

    2) https://www.adn.com/voices/article/alaskan-invents-flashy-coats-safeguard-tiny-dogs-predators/2016/05/16/

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  8. One of my sisters had a Yorkie that was almost lost to a pair of hawks that were trying to establish a nest 50 yards or so from their back yard. My sister saw the hawk launch from the tree towards the dog, jumped up and scared the hawk off.

    Nemo

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  9. Many years ago, my late wife and I were up in Bellingham WA visiting friends. We were in their backyard while they had their big dog and their daughter's little mutt out.
    Overhead a mother eagle with her young offspring were circling the area. The dad suggested she bring her little dog in, and she could not believe it was being hunted.

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  10. Got very large buzzards here in Texas, hundreds of them since it's near a watering hole. My GSD 100lbs+ hates them (probably for a reason). I keep a stupid prize ready in case they try to go after the smaller dog. (like 15lbs)

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  11. Great horned owls are known for getting skunks on occasion. Since they don't have a good sense of smell, the spray doesn't affect them as much as other animals. Sometimes when you catch a powerful stench of skunk, but it doesn't hang around long like when something gets sprayed. It might be an owl passing through.

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    1. I never thought of that. It sure does explain a lot. Thanks for the info.

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  12. When I was a small'un, we were cutting trees for the next years firewood in the woods. Got one that had a hawks nest in it, and we ended up raising a pair of Redtails. We also raised chickens, so yeah, you can already see trouble brewing. I recall seeing one launch from a small walnut in our yard, and Pop saw it too. The hawk started its glide towards the hen, and the old man pulled off a kick worthy of Bruce Lee, knocked that fucker right out of the air, and him wearing rubber gumboots. Hawks never did trouble the chickens again, but there were always plenty of pigeons, rats, snakes (if you've never seen a hawk fighting a snake, google it. Pretty impressive) and such. We ended up turning them in to the Game Warden so as not to get into trouble.

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  13. First wife has chihuahuas, when the kids were still young and I was over helping with things I'd twice seen a hawk circling the yard while the older one was out.

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  14. We have a bunch of hawks circling all the time. I saw one take a squirrel in the driveway a while back. It was sad watching the squirrel's buddy chasing like it could do something.

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  15. A few years ago one of those "bald eagle cams" got people up in a lather. A cat carcass was very plainly front and center for the viewing public. I was more amused than horrified.

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  16. My dog is a West Highland Terrier. He got divebombed by a hawk once but thankfully he was too big so it was a last second abort. I saw the entire thing happen and there would have been nothing I could have done.

    I live on the river now, and there's a pair of Bald Eagles that live nearby. They spend most of their time terrorizing the ducks, geese, and seagulls. Even the crows run from those things. They are majestic killing machines. There's tree cover here so he's somewhat safe when I take him outside, but between the eagles, coyotes, and river bank, he's never unattended for a moment.

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  17. I have 3 chi's and 2 wiener dogs. We also have resident bald eagles who perch in the trees and dive bomb the fields for ducks. Cool to watch. When they are perched, we bring the dogs in.

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