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View from a training truck.  WOW!!!

 

Not this truck !!!!!

This one's the club truck.

Actually an old portable flying loft.

I was told an early Army experiment for WWI

 

This is a little motivational tool I use..... LOL

 

     This is truer than I would like to admit. We have a terrible problem with Coopers Hawks. They are smart enough to wait in the trees for the birds to come in and land and then they strike. I must admit they are phenomenal flyers. And brilliant too. I have had two incidents of them getting into my lofts. The first time the hawk actually figured out to go in through a normal door on the first floor of my garage and go to the back of the garage, up the stairs to the bird loft. It didn't give him direct access to the birds but it rattled them all.

 

     The second incident was with my show loft. I have always had trouble with them hitting the back of the loft where I have wire from the floor up 18" on the wall (the show never had fly pens). And occasionally they would get under the loft and really spook the birds; killing a few over the years. That was normally during the winter with the stupid young hawks who didn't migrate with their parents. Usually just keeping the fiberglass doors down most of the week and they would move on. However I did have one smart enough to go under the loft to the front side where (like an idiot) I had mistakenly left the front door open. He simply hopped in the door. WOW was I surprised when I went in to feed that evening; after dark, and that darn Coopers come flying down the hallway at me. Welding gloves, a broom and a feed bag later the local DNR guy came to get him and relocate him.

 

     My most recent and most devastating incident was having a Coopers crash through the front window of my loft. He died for his troubles but not before he killed my foundation Creator cock Doubloon, plus three others and injuring four more. I had cleaned the windows a few days prior, so after looking at it, it did look like it was an open space in the loft. I guess the stupid thing thought it could fly right in. Again i believe it was a stupid youngster starving after his parents migrated.

 

     I do get a little reprieve when the Red Tails come back. I have a pair nesting in the woods behind my home. They don't harm the racers; they are too slow to catch them on the wing. Occasionally they will take a shot at a bird sitting on the roof top, but I have not known them to get one. They mostly circle and scream which is what keeps the Coopers out of the area for the summer.

 

     I recently saw an article which a flyer described how he used goose decoys to keep the hawks away. He just moved them every couple of days and the hawks quit bothering him. he was told that the hawks are actually afraid of the big birds and don't want to risk being on the ground near them, so they don't attempt to take prey to close to them. I will give it a try this year and add my findings.

More Info Coming Soon !!!

 

 

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