Eagle Rescued with Muzzleloader!

[RedFeather]

I think that eagle's new nickname is Stumpy. This story kind of got beat on over at RimFireCentral, too. Good thing he didn't have his .458 Winchester along.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Perhpas we can clear something up right here. Bald Eagles are fishers- they eat fish- not mammals. Golden Eagles, found in the mountainous West, gill mice, rats, squirrels, marmots, and occasionally a new born lamb.

If you have an eagle sitting in a tree near a chicken coop, it is not " Scoping " out the chickens. Its more likely just taking a nap, in the highest tree around. If anything, its presense will scare off the Red Tailed hawks who will take a chicken- usually a chick, if they can. hawks main diet are field mice. They will eat baby rabbits, and 13 stripe squirrels. They will eat carrion, but prefer to kill their own meat. Domestic pets represent a very small portion of their diet. Find a roost tree, and check the scat on the ground underneath it. take apart the feces, with a stick, and examine the bones. Almost all the bones found in hawk scat will be from mice. less than 10% from rabbits, and less than 1% from anything else.

 

[Runner]

Mike, I share most of your thoughts about the numbers of owls, eagles, and hawks here these days. I have had one hit the brim of my hat in a stand and another flare off at about three feet when I saw him coming and moved. The rabbits and quail are pretty much gone and it is tempting to blame the hawks.
Just about the time I start to think that way, I go and look at the pictures a photographer I talk to online takes. He travels to impoundments to take pictures of hawks in europe. We forget the other side of the argument too easily. I can drive a short distance and photograph them in the wild here.
Yes, there are too many of them right now! Buzzards they may be, but the woods is not the same without a tree full of roosted buzzards here and there!

 

[paulvallandigham]

Runner: If you want to see the Quail and rabbit populations return you need to plant fir trees and other shrubs and trees that give birds and rabbits protection from aerial attacks. Quail need to be able to get up off the ground far enough to avoid being killed by coyote, fox, raccoon, and possum, as well as feral cats and dogs. But they also need branches over their heads so that they can't be grabbed by hawks. The primary diet of hawks is meadow voles( field mice), but they do kill and eat rabbit babies, kittens, and the young of everything else, including game and song birds. The quail and pheasant populations deminish only because the cover is not extensive enough to protect the chicks. A really mature hawk can and will take a mature pheasant, and take it out of the air! But if there is enough cover, the pheasant populations will withstand this occasional loss. To grow lots of mice, you need grassy fields that are uncut, an dotted with bramble bushes, and scrub oaks, or other young trees. You want dead falls on the edges of the fields, where termites will eat the dead wood, worms will be active, and the shade will cause tall grass to die, but new grass shoots to grow. The shoots, the termites, the worms, and bugs, that eat the wood are all food for the mice. They also eat tons of grass and weed seeds. One acre of grass can support as many as 2500 mice! And Mice are the bottom of the food chain for most all predators. Grow mice, and you will have food for the hawks, so they don't have to chase your quail and pheasants. Plant cover and food plots for the birds, and you will see their numbers spring back. Asparagus seeded wild, provided both cover during the winter for quail, but also food for them, and the tangles of wild asparagus keep most predators out. In the Spring, you can cut the new shoots that come up every few days and eat fresh asparagus for a couple of month, more than paying you back for the effort made in planting the seeds. Once planted, they come back year after year, and the cover is just excellent for both quail and rabbits. Pheasants will also use it for cover. Fir trees that are about 20 feet tall are idea habitat for nesting birds, as they can get high enough up in the branches to avoid ground predators, but still have long bows and branches above them to protect them from hawks, and owls. If the branches of these firs drop all the way to the ground, rabbits and even deer will hide under them during bad weather. Nature's umbrella.

 

[trent/OH]

Gees this are lookin better! may not have to make up "rag eagles" it appears the kind mr. brooks has offered up some live targets......now if we can jes get the hawks to get their talons in the knot and hang upside down we may have the makins fer a shoot....! and keep this quiet, some frown on protected targets..... :shocked2: RC

Thus starts a new slang expression.......

"Don't get your talons in a knot"

Try to use it at least once a day for a month to let it catch on.

 

[RC]

................... :shocked2: ........ :shake:RC.........Knot funny........... :rotf:

 

[brubincam]

saw two mature eagles eating a dead deer a few months ago.... :v :v :v

 

[Old Charlie]

The rabbits and quail have all but disappeared in the part of the state where I live. I was told that the over population of deer was the culprit. I don't know if this is true or not. But I do know that back when we had to drive a hundred and fifty miles to see a deer , we had a lot of rabbits and quail.
Old Charlie

 

[RC]

I remember goin out every weekend with father and uncles an friends,small game huntin,pheasants,grouse, rabbits,squirrels..then deer huntin when that opened,always see deer,usually a red fox or 3, now...turkeys and coyotes,,,,only small game worth goin out fer is squirrels,maybe catch up with a rabbit,grouse is few and far[url] between..ain[/url]'t seen a red fox in years..i'm blamin coyotes and turkey...fer lack of small game and deer..but that's jes my opinion..boy i miss the ole days! RC

 

[paulvallandigham]

If the rabbits and quail are disappearing, you have habitat changes occuring as a result of changes in farm practices, and you also have problems with coyotes, and feral cats and dogs. Hawks can also take more than their fair share of quail and baby rabbits, but its the coyote that is the biggest offender. The Coyote population across the lower 48 states has boomed in the past 15 years, to the point they are wandering through the streets of towns and even cities. Someone even took a picture of a coyote walking Oak Street Beach in Chicago( Just east of the John Hancock Building, and the Drake Hotel, on the near north side of the Loop, a mile or so north of Navy Pier) a couple of years ago. We have coyote roaming through and living in my city, and they are also taking domestic pets and strays at alarming rates.If you will look up Bald Eagles in any Field Guide, or Encyclopedia, or even here on the internet, you can find out that their diet is fish, and not carion, or mammals, or other animals. Ospreys and Bald Eagles and most terns and erns are all fish eathing raptors. It is the Golden Eagle, slightly smaller than the Bald Eagle, that kills rodents and mammals. It is not uncommon for people to mistake turkey vultures for bald eagles at a distance, because of the bare white skin and the broad wingspan of vultures. Its actually the lack of a neck on vultures which makes them easy to distinguish from eagles. In cartoon, vultures are always portrayed as having crane-like necks. Not true.

 

[RC]

coyotes definitely! i forgot to add man,, and his ""practices" like buildin a house in a deer yard,an wonderin where the deer went?????????? seen golden eagles here,not very often,can't blame them,and i blame the tukeys fer the lack of deer because of similiar diets and the over success of reintroduction(???word???)they was all over! thinkin like was said, the farmer takin the fencelines didn't help.okay, yea, i blame the state too fer the deer,,,,bad[url] math..again[/url]..opinion! mine! RC