sparrow Hawk

[FrazeeDK]

Had what appears to be a sparrow hawk land in a tree in front of our house and sit for nearly 15 minutes.. Got a few shots through the window but when I tried to slip out the door to get a better one, it flew away.. Back when I first came over here as a young GI in 1973 I don't recall seeing any birds about.. Guess the country folk hunted them relentlessly back then... See a lot more birds of all types these days...

[TAXIfor7/11]

Great pic,looks like its got a full crop,so has killed and eaten recently,i had one back in uk,had some great sport with it

[TAXIfor7/11]

Funny you should mention the locals eating them,a few years back the wife came back from her sisters village and showed me a pic on her phone of 2 barn owl chicks in a chicken coup her nephew had got them out of a tree opposite their house,once i had explained to her that they can,t be fed on sticky rice and bamboo,she persuaded him to put them back,the guy across the way had another 3 in some sort of cage he was waiting for them to get a bit bigger then eat them they looked ready to leave the nest anytime soon,he too was persuaded to put them back cost me a few leos,but well worth it a few days later they were all seen leaving the nest flying across the rice fields,5 chicks in a clutch,must of been a good year for mice and rats

[TicToc]

This one is after the baby chickens.

[parrot]

A neighbor down the way raises chickens and ducks. First he had to protect them from dogs. Then the occasional mongoose. Later, hawks. I've seen the hawks high above, but never up close like the photos.

When we first moved to our home, the neighbors would hang long nylon nets across the marsh and eat anything....big or small....that found its way into the net. Those days seem long gone....and the birds have returned. I don't consider myself a birdwatcher, but when I see one, I want to know what kind it is. I'm up to 25 different kinds over the years. A pair of white-rump shamas have produced over 60 chicks in nesting boxes that we've put out for them. My wife's favorite is a gun blue finch that feeds on mealworms that we put out for the shamas. My favorite is a pair of mangrove pitas that have set up home in our yard over the past few years.
And the black bears are returning to my hometown in Ct. Funny how conservation works.

[FrazeeDK]

hardly intended conservation.. In many cases its a lack of predators to include less humans hunting for sport and a plethora of food sources. When I grew up in Massachusetts about 17 miles west of Boston we'd see raccoons, rabbits, an occasional muskrat or badger and in some parts of the town a few deer.. Now that same town with about 15,000 more inhabitants is overrun with wild turkeys (reintroduced in Mass in the late 70's), herds of wild deer, a few wolves, coyotes (not indigenous to Mass) beaver and innumerable other species.. Some like the turkey were reintroduced into the wild having been wiped out, others just have infiltrated back into suburban locations from more densely forested areas of the state..

I'd say here its much the same.. Much of the areas clearcut back in the 60's/70's are recovered with large secondary growth forests. The human population just doesn't have the need, as Parrot pointed out, to eat every protein source they can catch... Minimal hunting, and other than fish, not much trapping.. Even in that, the fish I saw caught over here 45 years ago were minnow sized or essentially globs of swimming protein.. Nowadays, there are fishing ponds everywhere that are stocked. A good rainy season will cause those ponds to flood and spread the wealth of fish to other ponds and bogs..

[TicToc]

By chance i happened to look down our old well.