digitS'
Garden Master
We put an awful lot of pressure on some wild species. A few are more plentiful than they were in my youth, when any hawk was a "chicken hawk."
I once shot a red-tail that was sitting in the tree by our barn. Only maybe was it posing any threat to our chickens. Hunting for grouse one day, years later, I'd just realized that I might find pigeons as I was walking along a forest bordering a hay field. Bang! The next moment I felt the total idiot for having shot a sparrow hawk!
This inappropriate human behavior is direct pressure on wildlife but I'm dismayed watching ferruginous hawk numbers decline around here because the open land that they must require is being used up in housing developments. It's good to see that predators, besides human, sometimes get a thumbs up by those who keep track of them: Ferruginous Hawk.
Steve
I once shot a red-tail that was sitting in the tree by our barn. Only maybe was it posing any threat to our chickens. Hunting for grouse one day, years later, I'd just realized that I might find pigeons as I was walking along a forest bordering a hay field. Bang! The next moment I felt the total idiot for having shot a sparrow hawk!
This inappropriate human behavior is direct pressure on wildlife but I'm dismayed watching ferruginous hawk numbers decline around here because the open land that they must require is being used up in housing developments. It's good to see that predators, besides human, sometimes get a thumbs up by those who keep track of them: Ferruginous Hawk.
Steve