Hawk Snatches a Martin from a Gourd Porch

[Dick Sherry]

On Friday the sun finally came out, the temprature was warming and the martins were back and very energetic around the housing. In the early afternoon, I looked out and saw several martins coming in to land on the houses and gourds. All of a sudden a Cooper's hawk flashed in from the west and grabbed a female off the porch of a gourd and kept right on going with the martin dangling from its talons. There were never any warning calls, and it was over in a few seconds.

All our gourds have the aluminum rod owl guards that obviously are not enough protection to keep a skilled hawk from getting a martin on a porch.

I spent the rest of the afternoon fabricating wire mesh guards to attach over the aluminum rods. They are U-shaped pieces of plastic coated garden fencing with 2"x3" openings. I also put a piece on the top to keep a hawk or owl from being able to reach down near the opening. The mesh guards are attached with wire in four places - one on each rod, and two places near where the mounting arm goes through the top of the gourd.

The martins were a little hesitant to land, but accepted the new guards within ten to fifteen minutes of the housing being raised back up. They are being very defensive, and as soon as they land on the houses or gourds they go right into a compartment. Our housing consists of two Trio houses and four gourds on a multi-purpose pole.

I spent a lot of time outside over the weekend, and saw both sharpshinned and Cooper's hawks either flying over or landing briefly in nearby trees. The martins have been on edge much of the time, and have not spent much time at all on the housing. At dusk, they waited until it was almost completely dark, and then hurried in and immediately went into their rooms.

These hawk attacks are very disheartening, especially when I thought I had a guard in place that would protect the martins. Martin housing may start looking like fortifications in areas where the hawk attacks are becoming an every day event.

[Eddie McKnight]

Hey, Dick, looks like you are exactly where I was over the weekend - cutting and shaping wire guards. Can you post some pics like I did in my post on preventing hawk attacks?

[Dick Sherry]

Eddie, I will try to get some pictures of the guards I made. Photography and transmitting images electronically are not among my basic skill set, but I know it helps to see what something looks like rather than just describing it.

I have looked at your pictures, and your guards should help your birds a lot.

[geezer]

I had a hawk attack at my location 3 days ago. Just caught a 2 second glimpse as he flew low thru the martin houses. It appeared the hawk had a Martin in it's talons.

Several of the decoys had been disturbed. So I straightened all of the decoys and added a couple more, but have not seen any evidence of another attack. Maybe just passing thru?

The wind has been brutal here the past 2 days..consequently no nest building.

[Dick Sherry]

Geezer, these hawk attacks are happening all over the country. I wish they would eat more starlings and house sparrows, and do us all a favor. Hope the one that hit your colony is on its way somewhere else. They can really cause problems if they are raiding a colony day after day.

The winds here have been fierce. Yesterday from the south and today from the north. Between the weather and the hawks, this may be a tough year for martins in our area.

Good luck.

[KathyF]

Dick, so sorry to hear about the hawks. I agree - they should only eat house sparrows & starlings! I'm glad you found a solution. I'm hoping I don't have to resort to building a cage around my housing, but gosh - they sure are noisy! Maybe I should put more food out in my bird feeder so the hawks will go after the feeder birds instead of the martins...but that's still a bad choice.

So far the decoys I use (6 of them right now) have worked really well....as long as I moved them around. Of course, I do have one very confused female that keeps wondering what's up with the stuck up dude!

[stan davison]

Dick, the hawks this year are very deadly, I am hoping they move on but who knows. I move my decoys daily, and that helps. I hope your hawk moves on soon. I also wanted to let you know that the other day a hawk landed on the cage around one of my m12ks and he was completely cream color and brown. Wish I had a pic of him. I chased him off but he returned to the same cage minutes later. And I basically had to jump up and clap to get him outa here. I have not seen a hawk with that coloration.

[Dick Sherry]

Kathy, thanks for your comments. I may have to try adding some decoys. I have two wooden ones that are on a nest material platform about twenty feet from the martin housing. They may not look convincing enough, because I never saw any martins go over to the platform last year.

Stan, I wonder if the hawk you saw could be a falcon. I saw a bird with falcon shaped wings go over our house a few days ago. I believe there are several that are very light colored.

[KathyF]

Dick, I mount mine right smack in the middle of the colony. That way, when the martins flush, it looks like the 'slow' martins just didn't have time to get off the racks. Just saw a Cooper's hawk attack tonight on two of the decoys - when the first one didn't budge, he went after the second one.

I mount them on the plant stakes that you can buy at Walmart , then I ziptie them to the very top level of gourds, so that I can quickly cut the ties and move them when I bring the racks down for nest checks. If you wrap your mounting point on the stake with a small bit of electrical tape, then put the mounting bracket on it for the decoy, the decoy won't spin into an upside-down position on the stake.

Good luck - I know it's nature's way, but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy!

[Dick Sherry]

Thanks, Kathy. I got a plastic decoy at Wild Birds Unlimited this morning, so I will be putting it out soon. Your suggestions are very helpful on how to attach it, because the clip on the bottom of the decoy looks like it will only fit a small diameter perch.