I’ve been living on this lake for over 20 years. It’s got abundant wildlife – ducks, cranes, egrets, other waterfowl, fish, lizards, snakes, frogs, squirrels, raccoons, possums – but in all the years I’ve been here, I have seen but one bird of prey, a red-tailed hawk which I saw last week. He(?) was standing on the ground eating his fill of lizards. Lizards are abundant here. You can’t go outside without stepping on one. The hawk caught and ate four of them without even having to move a step from his initial position.
With all this bounty available, why is this the only bird of prey I’ve seen in over 20 years? Are there only cetain times of the day or night when they hunt, when I’m not watching?
Wanna give us a bit of help here? As in, telling us generally what area of the country you live in, so we can figure out what birds of prey there might be?
You may be missing some vital component of the landscape necessary towards predatory birds – trees for roosting, abundant thermals – but without knowing where you are, my basic guess would be that the birds are there and you just haven’t noticed them.
Owls, of course, mostly hunt by night. However, osprey and hawks are certainly out and about during the daylight hours.
I’ll second Finagle. The birds are almost certainly there - there are plenty of birds of prey even around larger city parks in major cities - but you just aren’t noticing them for some reason. Other than that, I couldn’t speculate without knowing more about your location.
Birdwatcher here. Raptors are not easy to spot; they tend to have huge territories, and the chances that you’ll be in a certain place just when the resident bird of prey also happens to be there are small. It’s not like walking out into the backyard and being able to point at a grackle, or even a crow.
What seasoned birders do, to maximize their chances of finding, say, a Sharp-shinned hawk just in time for the Christmas Bird Count, is get familiar with their own territory, and keep track of when and where they’ve seen sharpies before, and thus those are the places they’re most likely to see a sharpie again. Then they’ll know where to head out on Christmas Day. But even then, it’s not a lock that they’ll bag a Sharp-shinned hawk for the glory of the chapter, they may still get skunked.
Also, in my experience the majority of raptor sightings are (a) hawks sitting in the tops of trees, and (b) hawks quickly flying past, but the inexperienced eye that doesn’t have the search gestalt for “hawk sitting in top of tree” and “hawk flying past” programmed into it isn’t able to correctly identify that “big stick at the top of the tree” and the “large bird flapping past” as a hawk. It takes practice.
IOW, it’s not that the birds aren’t there–it’s just that you just haven’t happened to see one.
Get yourself a pair of binoculars and a field guide, and cultivate the acquaintance of your local Audubon society–they’ll tell you where and when to look. Then you’ll start seeing your local birds of prey. If your ecosystem includes all that other wildlife, then yes, you certainly have them; you just have to learn to see them.
It’s central Florida. The lake is about 200 yards across and is connected to another slightly larger lake. We are surrounded by a dense forest of pines and oaks which appear to average 40 feet tall. There are thermals galore, as vultures (which I forgot to mention in the OP) are frequently observed soaring upon.
Although Central Florida isn’t as good for raptors as some other areas, there are at least a dozen species (besides vultures) that could potentially be seen in your area, including migrants. Only a few of them are regular thermal soarers though, and some of the others could be difficult to see in pine woods.
I happen to be in one of the best places for migratory raptors in the world. This year, like last year, I’ve organized an “Ocean to Ocean Raptor” watch across Panama to count the migrants on their way south to South America. Last year we counted 3.1 million raptors (mostly Turkey Vultures and Broad-winged and Swainson’s Hawks) in 6 weeks at 9 diffferent sites across the isthmus. I’ve been looking out my window today hoping to see some of the first of this year’s big flocks; they should be showing up this week.
I’m in the Tampa Bay area and I see birds of prey all the time. Mostly I see them sitting atop lampposts. Have you checked there? Mainly I see osprey, but I also saw some kind of hawk* recently whilst walking home after taking my kids up to school. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it but he was squawking up a storm. This was next to a four lane divided road, with literally hundreds of kids walking along there (it was “Walk to School Day”.
I think it was a red-tailed hawk, but I’m not a birder. If anyone can post a link to a guide I could tell you what it was.
I live in the Pacific Northwest and I’ve seen sparrowhawks in my backyard, ospreys and eagles nesting in navigation beacons in the rivers, peregrine falcons nest in the bridges, there’s a pair of bald eagles who live on an island hard by a well travelled bridge who nest there every year and show up on the news quite often. I’ve had a red tailed hawk stoop on a pigeon fifteen feet from my front door (young one, no sense but much hunger apparently!) and scare the crap out of my cat. I’d be pretty upset if they weren’t around any more, not to mention up to my ass in rats and stupid baby bunnies…
-Many large birds of prey hunt from hundreds of feet up, as their eyesight is acute enough to spot ground movement from that distance. At that height you either might not notice them, or they’re such a little speck you can’t tell what kind of bird it is.
-These birds are very sensitive to humans in their presence and will often seek out nesting/hunting sites in more remote areas.
Many of these birds require large, old growth trees to nest in. These trees may not be present in your area, due to either natural factors or logging.
Way out here in southern Australia, I assume the niches are still the same. One way to be alerted to a bird of prey in the area is the calls of other birds. When I hear alarm calls of some of the larger birds and the little guys go silent, then it is the time to check for a bird of prey. You will soon be programmed to notice that change in the background sounds and go looking for the birds of prey.
We have a goodly space of open sky as well. They tend to circle up high, so if the forest is close pines, that may obstruct your view. It takes a bit of observing to pick up the tail shape, wing shape, flight pattern and so on, to distinguish them.
A wedgetailed eagle soaring overhead - that is a sight to behold!
