For many wild creatures, winter is hunger time. That’s especially true for young hawks born in the spring and facing winter’s harshness for the first time.
Plenty of hungry hawks are out there right now. It’s probably why we get several calls and e-mails this time of year from folks worried that a hawk is hanging out in their yard and trying to make a meal of the small songbirds at their feeder. Some homeowners even report hawks trying to carry off their kitties.
As far as I know, a hawk carrying off a pet is a rare occurrence. Nevertheless, the competition for food this time of year causes the raptors — especially juveniles — to be bolder in going after prey. Unlike songbirds that can live on seed and fruit and other vegetable matter during the winter, hawks and other raptors are meat eaters. To survive, they must eat other animals, including small rodents, snakes, frogs — and other birds.
Fueling the competition is a greater number of hawks — especially red-tailed, red-shouldered, Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks — vying for food in winter. In addition to the hawks that reside in Georgia year-round, numerous others move here and elsewhere south of the snow line to spend the cold months.
If you’re concerned about a hawk hanging around your yard (most likely a Cooper’s or a sharp-shinned) and making meals of your titmice, chickadees and other feeder birds, the best suggestion is to stop filling your feeders for about a week. The little birds will find other feeders in the interim, and the hawk will look for better hunting grounds. When you refill your feeders, the songbirds will return.
On the other hand, you could do nothing: Let nature take its course. It may be gruesome for some, but watching a magnificent hawk swoop and pounce on its prey can be one of nature’s most awesome spectacles.
Sad to say, more than half the young hawks born in the spring won’t make it through winter. Unable to find enough food, most will starve. For many, however, their demise will be due more to poor flying and hunting ability than a lack of prey.
For a raptor, learning to fly and hunt isn’t easy. A young hawk that doesn’t master those skills may be able to get through summer when food is plentiful. But in winter, when prey is less available and competition for food is fierce, the less-able bird is likely to perish.
In the sky: The moon will be new on Thursday night. Just after dark on Friday, look for a thin crescent moon low in the west, says David Dundee, astronomer with the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum. Mercury is low in the east just before sunrise and will appear near the moon on Wednesday morning. Mars rises out of the east just after sunset. Jupiter is in the west at sunset and sets in the west about three hours later. Saturn rises out of the east about an hour before midnight.
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