Hawk on porches of plastic house

[teridickinson]

Last summer a Coopers was landing on the porches of my neighbor's Heath and plastic house (not sure of the model).

The heath is unmodified with round holes, so I'm sure it was probably sucessful in getting some nestlings but the houses are on bent telescoping poles he can't lower, so he doesn't do nest checks so I don't know that for sure.

This year, our martins were trickling in as normal until about a week ago. They were here for the big snow storm, then gone. Don't think it was the weather, it melted off the next day, I think this hawk is harassing them unmercifully.

A week or so ago while watching the martins come it, I saw it land on both his houses again. It hops all around, trying to look in. We've also seen it during the day.

A few martins have started reappearing. No martins are in the round hole house this year, but he does now have 2 in the plastic house. Luckily it has SREH and is modified to only one compartment on each side, so the compartments are very deep.

Anyway, last night the martins stayed out till almost complete dark, then came screaming in to the house. Not one millisecond later, the hawk nearly took my head off as it zipped over to that house.

Luckily the martins stayed put safely indoors, but again it landed on the porches and hopped all over the house. I chased it off, it went about 30 feet, turned around and considered landing again, (with me screaming my head off) then decided to go on and leave. Definitely not scared of people. I think it must be female, the thing is huge!

The problem is if we do anything at all to slow the martins down when they come in to the house, they will be dead, as she is clearly watching and waiting for them to come down. The direction she came from there are not any trees for a good long distance, which is probably why she didn't get there in time. However, if she picks another direction, his house and some trees are close and will give cover.

So instead of adding a wire cage or something the martins have to learn to negotiate, I'm wondering if some garden rods or dowels attached vertically to the rails on the porches would still leave a good flight path for the martins, but make it harder for the hawk to land, especially if they extend above and below the porches. The hawk comes in low and then swoops up at the last minute, anything that makes it harder for her to land should help, I think.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Teri

[John Miller]

Teri

Hang in there.

Your ideas all sound good to me... "Tim in Arkansas" here, Hot Springs, has a lot of experience in this area and added multiple rods to his housing, so he will chime in when he gets time I'm sure. But I like the idea of trying something simple..maybe just those green garden stakes vertically attached.

I'm so lucky in open park sites not to have had, or at least not witnessed, these hawk problems but I'm knocking on wood and look forward to seeing what works for you.

John M

[Tim Mangan-Kansas]

Teri:

Unfortunately, John is correct. I have had many hawk attacks at my colony the past few years. Here is a picture of hollow aluminum rods I placed on all of my houses. I have never seen a hawk try to land on the porch with the rods in place. I would start with this modification.



Here is a picture of 2" by 4" wire mest that is on one of my houses. It also has the aluminum rods in place. If you place the rods on your house and the hawk continues to hang from the porch then I would suggest adding the wire mesh.



Hope this helps.

Tim

[teridickinson]

Thanks Tim,

What is the spacing on those rods around the entrance hole?

I need to figure out what keeps the hawk off but still lets the martins scoot in really quickly!

And then I need to convince the neighbor to do it!

Teri

[Tim Mangan-Kansas]

Teri:

The spacing between the vertical rods is roughly 2", give or take an 1/8". The rods do not slow the martins down from landing or quickly getting into a cavity.

Tim

[teridickinson]

Haven't talked to the neighbor yet about adding bars, but wanted to report that yesterday there were martins all over both sets of houses and last night I saw about 6 new ones come in for the night and this AM my husband reports they are all over the houses again.

So, while we still need to discourage the hawk, at least we aren't in a martin ghost town anymore.

I still don't know why our martins show up a month later than everyone else around here. I should learn not to worry so much when everyone else in DFW has martins and we don't, they haven't let us down yet!

[Guest]

You might look into the blinking lights. I believe Emil has them.... or read about someone on here.
They basically come on at dusk and flash.

[Suzette McGowen]

We have always had hawk problems here in Plano. We lost a female early this year and I watched a decoy being taken off. I have installed vertical dowel rods. I used the porches on the Trio and the perches on the Lonestar to attach to. All I had to do was cut the dowel the right length and attach it with a nylon tie. It really seems to have helped. At the very least the hawk would have to navigate the posts to get to the martin on the porch. I spaced the dowels on the Trio so the door would still open. I installed four dowels on each side of the Lonestar so the perches and the porches would be protected. I can tell you that it feels good to be proactive. All we can do is be creative and try our hardest to protect them.