Birds 104 Chapter 3
Death from Above! The Raptors - Eagles, Ospreys, Falcons, Hawks and Owls
Most of our native Birds of Prey – Eagles, Ospreys, Falcons, Hawks and Owls – will take fish if given the opportunity and some, like Ospreys, are almost exclusively fish eaters. Defined by the triple threat of keen eyesight, tearing beak and powerful talons, the Raptors as a group blanket the whole continent of North America, so if you have a pond you will probably be seeing at least one of them at some point. When that happens, one of my friends aptly describes the situation as “like shooting fish in a barrel”.
By jjron (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
A raptor that sees your pond, even from hundreds of feet above, will soon be a guided missile. IF there’s a clear flight path down to the surface, he will swoop down to skim the surface of the pond, firing down into the water to impale his prey with massive, deadly sharp talons, and up, up and away with a fish he will go. Raptors very much prefer to take their prey “on the wing”, as it were, as much as avianly possible. The hawk or osprey that ends up sitting in the pond is likely either very hungry or very young, because it takes so much more energy to get aloft again than that swift snatch-and-go requires.
Luckily, there are a number of countermeasures you can employ once your pond has been targeted, hopefully before losing too many fish.
- Gauntlets! (Blocking access) Raptors prefer to swoop in and back out again, so blocking that clear flight path with vegetation is very effective. These guys fly for a living, so they can’t afford injuries. Putting up a barrier grid of taut, strong monofilament fishing line (above head height) that the raptor can’t easily fly around will discourage them, and although relatively inconspicuous to us, the lines will be clearly visible to a raptor. They don’t call them “eagle eyes” for nothing – with 2-8 times sharpness of vision we have, some birds of prey can spot a good size koi from a mile up! They’ll see netting over the pond too, so erecting a good quality net over the pond will certainly discourage them. Get a pretty one – unlike the monofilament, you’ll be looking right at the mesh too.
- Obfuscation! (Hiding the fish) All birds of prey rely upon their exceptional visual acuity, so keeping them from feasting on your pond fish can be as simple as adding a few varieties of surface dwelling aquatic plants. These surface floating plants will provide a place for the fish to swim under, reducing the amount of time that they are visible to winged predators. Of course, if you were considering roofing the pond anyway, now you have an even better reason to. Any cover, even vegetative, that hides your fish from sight will be effective.
What doesn’t seem to work well on Raptors
- Barrages (Blasting with Water) Although there is something deeply satisfying about a swooping predator getting blasted just in the nick of times, those nifty motion detectors with water squirting capabilities have proven not to be effective after the first or second time. Hungry hawks will quickly learn that the devices are harmless and ignore them after that.
One last point - these birds are both exceedingly valuable in the environment and protected by law. They tend to do far more good than harm, keeping nuisance birds in check, cleaning up carrion, controlling a whole host of reptiles and rodents. The most you can do is discourage them.
Most of our native Birds of Prey – Eagles, Ospreys, Falcons, Hawks and Owls – will take fish if given the opportunity and some, like Ospreys, are almost exclusively fish eaters. Defined by the triple threat of keen eyesight, tearing beak and powerful talons, the Raptors as a group blanket the whole continent of North America, so if you have a pond you will probably be seeing at least one of them at some point. When that happens, one of my friends aptly describes the situation as “like shooting fish in a barrel”.
By jjron (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
A raptor that sees your pond, even from hundreds of feet above, will soon be a guided missile. IF there’s a clear flight path down to the surface, he will swoop down to skim the surface of the pond, firing down into the water to impale his prey with massive, deadly sharp talons, and up, up and away with a fish he will go. Raptors very much prefer to take their prey “on the wing”, as it were, as much as avianly possible. The hawk or osprey that ends up sitting in the pond is likely either very hungry or very young, because it takes so much more energy to get aloft again than that swift snatch-and-go requires.
Luckily, there are a number of countermeasures you can employ once your pond has been targeted, hopefully before losing too many fish.
- Gauntlets! (Blocking access) Raptors prefer to swoop in and back out again, so blocking that clear flight path with vegetation is very effective. These guys fly for a living, so they can’t afford injuries. Putting up a barrier grid of taut, strong monofilament fishing line (above head height) that the raptor can’t easily fly around will discourage them, and although relatively inconspicuous to us, the lines will be clearly visible to a raptor. They don’t call them “eagle eyes” for nothing – with 2-8 times sharpness of vision we have, some birds of prey can spot a good size koi from a mile up! They’ll see netting over the pond too, so erecting a good quality net over the pond will certainly discourage them. Get a pretty one – unlike the monofilament, you’ll be looking right at the mesh too.
- Obfuscation! (Hiding the fish) All birds of prey rely upon their exceptional visual acuity, so keeping them from feasting on your pond fish can be as simple as adding a few varieties of surface dwelling aquatic plants. These surface floating plants will provide a place for the fish to swim under, reducing the amount of time that they are visible to winged predators. Of course, if you were considering roofing the pond anyway, now you have an even better reason to. Any cover, even vegetative, that hides your fish from sight will be effective.
What doesn’t seem to work well on Raptors
- Barrages (Blasting with Water) Although there is something deeply satisfying about a swooping predator getting blasted just in the nick of times, those nifty motion detectors with water squirting capabilities have proven not to be effective after the first or second time. Hungry hawks will quickly learn that the devices are harmless and ignore them after that.
One last point - these birds are both exceedingly valuable in the environment and protected by law. They tend to do far more good than harm, keeping nuisance birds in check, cleaning up carrion, controlling a whole host of reptiles and rodents. The most you can do is discourage them.
