Red tail hawks?

Cheryl~ I found this. Depending on the size of the hawks and how well fed they look, I might be suspicious. http://www.arcytech.org/java/population/facts_hawks.html

While still young and living in the nest, hawks will eat worms and beetles. They will also eat frogs, mice and snakes. As they get older, hawks prey mainly on rodents but also on insects and their larvae, fish, and larger mammals such a rabbits, hares, and squirrels. They will also eat carrion.

Biggest thing a hawk is going to go after is a rat or pigeon down here (actually saw a hawk nail a pigeon in the backyard out in Cotton Valley), so unless you have small kittens around I wouldn't be too worried. On a side note while I was working in Glacier Bay, AK the boat's first mate would tell a story about a time he saw a lady get off a Cruise Ship with a tea-cup poodle in her arms,she let the poodle down to run around and not more than a minute later a bald eagle swoops down grabs the poodle in it's talons, and takes flight with the little pup yelping off into the distance.

The hawks I watch roosting on top of the power poles seem to be be mowin on mostly Gekos. Occaisionally a small bird or rodent.

I always worry about my teacup poodle when we go out.

There are two that are in the area of STC and Judith's Fancy.

i have chickens and never had a problem with hawks. even when they were smaller.

i have seen them swoop down and grab a lizard and saw one with a rat in its claws. it dropped the rat....whew for the rat.

probably go after a kitten if they were real hungry but then so will a mongoose go after a puppy or kitten.

Thanks everyone, now I can breathe easier knowing he will be okay out there on the roof!
Cheryl

I was going to chime right in and say no worries! I've raised a lot of cats in an area with a high concentration of red tails without any problems. Sometimes they were targeting the same prey and there were close encounters but the cats were never the intended prey. I was surprised to find that there are reports online of red tails taking cats. How reliable those reports are is another matter.

The red tails here have learned a fascinating behavior. They point into the wind and look like they're thumb tacked to the sky. Through high powered binoculars you can see that only their heads, the tips of their wings, and their tails move. Fascinating...

Aussie, I totally agree with them being fascinating! We always keep binoculars out on the balcony and they just ride the wind and cruise. If you zoom in you can see their head pointed downward, then presumably when they see something of interest they are like a bat out of hell! Man are they fast!! I was trying to guess at how much this birds weighed and thought maybe around 20 lbs for the adults, of course a lot depends on that, how old, when they ate, sex etc.

They are indeed fun to watch. They weigh much less than you'd think. I think that around 2 lbs is average even though they have impressive wing spans. I watched one deftly take a small bird off my bird feeder. It had quite a few branches to negotiate. As it closed in, it folded in its wings and came in like a missile. On several occasions, my cats were stalking bunnies. They were close, wagging their butts and ready to pounce. They never saw the hawks coming. They'd hysterically jump straight up in the air and run like hell. LOL One of my cats had it figured out though. She would flatten to the ground when the hawk dropped, The hawk would make the kill and my cat would eat the bunny.

2 lbs? the ones that hang out here are much bigger than that, i am going to say they are the size of my 3 yr old cat. Now I am concerned again...What other types of hawks are around here, however the picture anitqueone found does look like the ones we have, but much bigger than you say.
gotta go find my cat now:-(

(rats. Can't figure out how to paste a link to a funny and semi-relevant picture. Attempts deleted)

Yup, 2 to 4 lbs. 4 lbs is a hawk with better than a 4 foot wing span. Mother Nature builds them light with hollow bones. My cat's favorite roost on St Thomas was the roof because of dogs in the neighborhood that killed cats. Mine got lucky. Her instinct to drop to the ground saved her life. The dogs overshot her. They did some damage to her tail though. She couldn't lift it for weeks. 🙁

I had hawks overhead almost daily on STT with my cat on the roof - no problem. Your kitty should be fine.

The hawks are looking for easy prey. They are not likely to attack another predator like a cat....too great a chance of becoming cat-supper! While they are big enough to attack a small cat, and do, sometimes go after rabbits, cats have sharp claws and teeth.

Where we lived in Central PA, we had a lot of big hawks, red tailed, red shouldered, goshawks, kestrals, broad wings & rough legs and I've never seen a raptor take on a cat.

Now, on the other hand if there are owls nearby, like Great Owls or Barred Owls, they will take on cats, and win. In fact I have seen on many occasions owls will hunt cats for sport. But then again, if hawks are the cheetahs of the raptor kingdom, owls are the lions.

When I was a kid growing up here in the same LaGrande Princesse family "compound" where I am today, I had a red-tailed hawk as a pet. (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!) 😮 She had fallen out of a nest just outside our far window, so I "saved" her by feeding her mashed up cooked rice or bread in milk...dropper-feeding every 3-4 hrs, blah, blah...you get the picture. Well, she grew VERY quickly, the perfect picture of health in no time flat...learned to fly...(I'd like to think I helped, but I think I just looked silly)...and took up in the same nest from which she fell from. BUT!!!...she was a wild bird who was raised indoors and outdoors...learned to open our screen door with her talons...then open the fridge door to get to the loaf of bread she knew was inside...talk about a big mess!
I don't remember the details of her finally staying in her tree. She used to follow our car for a few miles when we went out....
Neat, beautiful birds but not good pets. As far as I remember, she lived happily ever after as she 'weaned' herself from us.

(ps...we had cats and she never bothered them...also pet chickens...never bothered them either)

(also...still have two scars from her 'till this day)

RE your cat: not to worry 🙂

LOL...too funny! Now that's a kitty with attitude!

Thanks Jules~ I have no fears now!

Yeah-- isn't that cat making an absolutely EPIC leap? Amazing.

(found on www.icanhascheezburger.com which I unfortunately recently stumbled onto. My abs are sore from laughing and I can't walk away from the computer. T O O F U N N Y)

Great!!!!