Oh, how cool! I have had nesting hawks in my old woods many times.. but have never had visual access to an Owl nest, so I appreciate getting a cloeup up look at one. Gail R (WNY)

Thanks everyone. The puzzle pieces are falling in place. I think that the circling hawks I saw may well have been parents teaching their youngsters to hunt, judging from the calling to one another and the fact that two of these hawks appeared to be a slightly different color and a bit smaller than the other two. I'm feeling greatly relieved to think that the swallows and hummers are safe somewhere else. The hawks don't lack for food this year. Some of the rabbits are really huge and a single one would feed a family of hawks. Last year a neighbor's dog killed the fox babies in the den at the edge of the woods behind our meadow. :-( Needless to say the parent foxes went elsewhere to raise young this year, and this left a plentitude of rodents and a predator niche that the hawks are now filling. Also our cat has grown too old to hunt as she once did and the two neighbor cats are rather clueless when it comes to prey. So the hawks are seemingly reaping the rewards. We have had a multitude of robins this year as well, and they have raised several batches of fledglings. I'm surprised that they too have not flown off in fear of the winged predators, and also surprised that the overpopulation of moles have left them worms to eat. But I'll just enjoy watching the hawks and robins, since they are the most ubiquitous right now.

sounds like a red-tailed to me...try to get a pic.

They don't work. I have a few well placed rubber snakes here and there. They do scare workers that come here, but I can't speak for the birds. Do they work? Maybe. We do have REAL owls around here. That might be what you need. We have huge pine tree groves, and they seem to live up there. They get a lot of gophers, and the coyotes get the rest.