Attracting raptors

[ShinySideUp]

I have a big garden that is generally obscured from the view of neighbours and I often see things like buzzards flying over and the occasional visit of sparrowhawks, never, of course, when I have my camera to hand. How can I best attract these birds to my garden and into a position where I can get some pics of them? Out and about, I often see buzzards perched on telegraph poles so if I had something similar in my garden how could I bait the top so the buzzards would land on it (if they even would).

 

[Box Brownie]

IMO put simply, no do not bait/feed raptors!

Though if you could setup a 'butcher post' for them to perch/eat their prey that might(?) be one way to encourage them to visit.........but please no baiting.

Then set up a trail cam to watch the post and note, as appropriate, if they visit. If so, place a hide in a suitable position......then sit and wait in the hide. Don't place the hide too close to the post.....not too sure but at least 30 feet away.

NB raptors are wary birds, though the Sprawk can be bold in domestic gardens (we have had one take a Collared Dove within 10feet of the back door). You don't want to change their behaviour to become even slightly dependent on human supplied food or so used to people that they behave differently.........such as going for any neighbours pet rabbit/guinea pig etc

 

[ShinySideUp]

IMO put simply, no do not bait/feed raptors!

Though if you could setup a 'butcher post' for them to perch/eat their prey that might(?) be one way to encourage them to visit.........but please no baiting.

Then set up a trail cam to watch the post and note, as appropriate, if they visit. If so, place a hide in a suitable position......then sit and wait in the hide. Don't place the hide too close to the post.....not too sure but at least 30 feet away.

NB raptors are wary birds, though the Sprawk can be bold in domestic gardens (we have had one take a Collared Dove within 10feet of the back door). You don't want to change their behaviour to become even slightly dependent on human supplied food or so used to people that they behave differently.........such as going for any neighbours pet rabbit/guinea pig etc

TBH I don't think it would work anyway as I couldn't put live bait out, I mean I can't even shoot a squirrel with an air rifle -- and god knows, I really want to, they are almost as bad as rats here!

When I had guinea pigs and rabbits I always used to make sure that there was a lid on the run for that very reason, I did not want to see my little pets carried aloft by some hungry buzzard or SH.

 

[Sky]

I'm with BB on the home front - a definite no no.

However, setting up some occasional road kill near a hide somewhere 'out & about' won't upset their natural behaviour. Ask your friendly local farmer/landowner if you can set up a hide somewhere.

 

[sphexx]

I have a big garden that is generally obscured from the view of neighbours and I often see things like buzzards flying over and the occasional visit of sparrowhawks, never, of course, when I have my camera to hand. How can I best attract these birds to my garden and into a position where I can get some pics of them? Out and about, I often see buzzards perched on telegraph poles so if I had something similar in my garden how could I bait the top so the buzzards would land on it (if they even would).

I have a not very large garden but but with mature sycamore, lime & chestnut trees and surrounded by other gardens and only a few hundred yards from farmland. For the past 25 years at least sparrowhawks have regularly killed in my garden and nearby road verges, it seems almost weekly that I find woodpigeon feathers from kills. Woodpigeons nest every year in a small Larch in my garden and there is plenty of food for birds generally though I no longer feed them. The hawks perch high up in the trees usually out of sight but if they catch sight of me looking at them they shuffle behind foliage.

So my advice would be to just feed the other birds — which you probably do anyway and grow some big trees ( ) if you have none! Occasionally they have “killed” (the prey are not usually dead) in front of me and have been very tolerant of my presence.

On ‘perches for predators’. A nearby farm with extensive Christmas Tree plantations erects “T” shaped poles among the trees for raptors (mostly Owls I expect) to use — this is to discourage them from perching on and damaging the growing tips of the taller trees. I don’t know what the success of this is but presumably the farmer believes it works.