I don't know why, but the last 2 times in as many days that I've tried to respond on this thread, my comment has just disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle or something. Today, from inside my house, I heard the same screaming. Stepping out on my front walk, I could tell it was up in my pine tree. Look as I might, I could not see the hawk, but there was a ton of noise and commotion up there. I think I saw some grackles and some bluejays hoppping around, and I still wasn't positive there was even a hawk up there, despite the screams (not being a bird expert, I don't know the calls for certain). I thought maybe it was the blue jays screaming. This time I had the camera. i took a step onto the grass under the trees to aim for a better vantage point, but before I could do anything else, a HUGE (wide wingspan) bird flapped out of the tree, away from me and my house, and flew off into the distance. With him flew at least two smaller birds (same as last time). He didn't seem to be chased by them. They seemed to be companions? wingmen? LOL I dont' know. Anyway, I stupidly was trying to turn on my camera although it was already on and I didn't get a picture. I'm marvelling at the fact that this large bird can hide itself in the trees so well. This is the second time I was certain of it's location in a particular tree but still could not see it. Anyway, I think it's pretty cool!

I don't think your area is too open for song birds. How long have you been feeding in that location? Deep snow cover will push birds south, even if they winter in your area. Your hawk doesn't sound like an Accitper, the lean Hawks that routinely attack feeders. In my experience, Accipters rarely perch in the open, like on a barn for more than a brief amount of time. They are usually inside the tree canopy. Killing a weasel also suggests its more likely a Buteo Hawk, the big stocky hawks that mainly feed on rodents. Buteos are usually on open perches, along the higways, on telephone poles, on buildings, etc. Accipters usually need the element of surprise to catch a healthy adult bird. In the summer time, adult birds will usually mob them and pester then until they leave the area. This time of year, all the song birds are adults and wise. Accipters usually rely on the stealth, below the horizon attack this time of year. They fly really close to the ground and charge into areas they anticipate birds to be and grab any bird that doenst flush in time. I've seen them make attacks on my feeder when its empty. They build up speed and come around the corner the house ambush the feeder. They will make a J turn around the feeder pole and almost touch the ground (right where the Doves would normally be). They do this even without any birds present. Even using this strategy, I've seen doves escape, usually losing a few feathers. Being out in the open makes its hard for the Hawk to get the element of surprise with lots of eyes watching and no terrian to take advantage of. Now, in the summer time with fledgings everywhere, Accipters can catch them without the element of surprise. If you get alot of accipter attacks, you can try a decoy. Since the hawk usually goes for the last bird to move when attacking. Purple Martin landlords use these to reduce the chances for success. But I don't think your lack of birds is related to the hawk. I've seen our birds spot an accipter 200 yards away and freeze. A Buteo hawk could be perched 50 yards away and they would be indifferent to it, except when nesting.

Nathan, It is neglible. You must always include two factors other than the gross numbers eaten by the raptors. The first factor is the range or territory the raptors hunt in. If it's just 100 acres, the removal of 3000 rodents can be suppressive of rodent numbers. But if hunting occurs (as it does for larger raptors) over many square miles, the removal of a few thousand mice, voles, or lemmings is only a small fraction of the entire population of the large hunting area. The second factor, totally unaccounted for in popular characterizations of the effects of raptors on prey populations, is the ability of rodents to reproduce, especially after loss to predators. Yes, 3000 lemmings (or voles or mice, or whatever) sounds like a lot of animals. It is. But how long does it take for the rodents to replace an individual lost to a raptor? Since rodents reproduce in just weeks, and in great numbers, the effects of owl or hawk predation is essentially nil. In fact, population ecology strongly suggests that raptor predation of rodents merely opens new, isolated "holes," places where a few hundred square feet have no mouse or vole because a hawk grabbed the one that lived there. (Yes, I know, they live socially, but the effects are the same.) Raptor predation merely creates opennings for copius numbers of young rodents to fill. In short, rodents reproduce faster than hawks can kill them. If rodents produced only a single brood or two each year, raptors could, indeed, "control" them. But they don't. They breed time after time, producing multiple offspring each time. And because all raptors have large hunting ranges, they simply can't control small rodent populations. It was a nice way to get people to believe that hawks should be protected because they controlled mice and rats that eat human food. But authentic understanding of both the hunting frequencies and ranges of hawks, compared to the massive reproductive capacities of rodents (the neglected factor), show that hawks can't possibly "control" rodent populations in any effective way. There are too many mice, voles, rats, and lemmings, and worse yet, the little blighters simply reproduce too fast for a local pair of raptors to keep up. And by the way, I've done extensive food consumption research on the food requirments of red-tailed hawks. They do not require "large amounts of small mammals in order to survive." They actually require about 125 grams of flesh each day. That's four or five voles. At the maximum (5 voles x 2 hawks x 365 days), a pair of red-tails can consume 3650 voles a year. Most red-tails have hunting ranges of 2 or more square miles. There is no way the removal of a mere 3650 voles from a two-mile square area could even be detected. There will be tens of thousands of voles left un-hunted, all of which are producing new broods of voles every 4-6 weeks or less for most of the year.

Nice picture!! It kind of looks like it may be holding it's other leg up, or maybe just had it in that position when you snapped the photo. Birds with one leg, that eat mostly seeds can exist better than birds of prey, which have to stand on one leg while holding prey with the other, while using their beak to rip it's food apart. If flying and holding their meal, they need one leg to land on and grip a limb, and they would have to drop their meal everytime they land if they only had one leg. On a much sadder note, I have seen people using claw traps nailed to the top of long poles baited with food to catch hawks. In one instance, I saw the leg of a large bird, most likely a hawk, hanging from one, so somewhere there is a one-legged bird, but whether it lived or not I do not know. They don't want the hawks around because of the threat to the purple martins. Kt