Owls, Hawks & Falcons can be a threat to the birds in your yard. I have had problems with sevral at one time. They have chased birds and the hawk hit the house window, ran into a mesh satellite dish. Woodpeckers have been lost due to hawks and falcons. The introduction of hawks into the city to rid pigeons have caused the close suburban areas to have more hawks. It's not a pleasant sight to see your state bird vanishing from over abundance of predators. You will not see any birds at your feeding when hawks are lingering around. Hawks will sit and hide in trees then dive to capture an unsuspecting victim. Owls hunt at night and find the birds sleeping in the trees.

Raccoons have been multipling and there has been an epidemic of rabies the past several years in the north eastern area of the United States. Of course automobiles have taken the toll on some crossing the road too. At night the "coons" roam and climb in the trees and find the nesting birds and then rare or non-rare species are distroyed or badly injured. They also will eat the sunflowers seeds out of your feeder, also they have damaged the feeders. If you have a vegetable garden they will dig it up looking for bugs of anything else in the dirt.

Squirrels & chipmunks are predators to the birds too. Besides eating with them at the feeders, they have stolen eggs from the nest or bird house or eaten the new hatchlings. Over abundance of any one species can be harmful. I personally saw in the summer of 1999 a small red squirrel making a meal of a young mourning dove who was just learning how to get around on its own. Also the larger fox squirrel making prey of two young robins who where almost ready to venture from the nest. Squirrels are agressive.

photo by D.D. Bulmer 1998 A Fox squirrel in Seed

Roadrunner is not the sweet bird from the Warner Brothers cartoons. If you live in the South west of United States you will know of the Road Runner. It's diet included other birds, besides eating rattle snakes, lizards & bugs. It hid behind the wall near the bird feeder. It jumped up and snatched one of the song birds that came to the bird feeder or landed on top of the fence. The roadrunner would run then leap and fly down over the hill side.

photo by D. D. Bulmer 1998

Crows, Jays, Grackles, Cowbirds raid the nest of other birds. Jays and grackles have pecked new nestling or young birds - just learning how to fly and find food for themselves. They feed them to their young. Cowbirds do not make a nest of their own. Other smaller birds "adopt" the eggs they laid in the nests of wrens, or song sparrows that the cowbird finds and tosses out the eggs of the nest owner. The photo is of the small size chipping sparrow foster parent feeding a young cowbird that had hatched in the chipping sparrow nest.

photo by D. D. Bulmer 1998 Chipping Sparrow feeding young larger Cowbird