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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 !!! |
