If you think you're seeing more hawks in Atlanta these days, you're right. A new study by University of Wisconsin researchers shows that Atlanta is one of several cities nationwide in which hawk populations have risen over the past few decades — particularly of Accipters, or woodland hawks.
Georgia's accipters include the Cooper's hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk, distinguished by broad, rounded wings and long tails that help them maneuver skillfully through woods. (Soaring hawks such as red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks belong to the Buteo family of hawks.)
An ability to negotiate in tight spaces enables accipters to go after their favorite prey: songbirds and sometimes larger birds, including quail and domestic chickens. A taste for chicken, in fact, once earned the Cooper’s hawk a notorious reputation. “If any hawk deserves the name ‘chicken hawk,’ it is the Cooper’s hawk,” wrote the late Georgia ornithologist Thomas Burleigh. Chicken farmers often shot the hawks on sight.
Hunting and other threats, such as DDT, pollution and habitat loss, caused hawk numbers to plummet steeply during the last century.
Now, populations are rebounding, and accipters, once found mostly in rural woodlands, have found convenient homes in cities. The biggest reason is abundant, reliable food — namely, songbirds that flock to backyard feeders and provide easy targets for the raptors. Chickens kept in backyard coops and let out during the day also are tempting quarry.
The Cooper’s Hawk, the largest and most common accipter, is the most likely attacker in yards. Other hawks, though, may occasionally attack.
For some of us, such encounters are teachable moments about relationships between predator and prey. The other day, a hawk swooped down in the backyard of my Decatur neighbor, Daniel Ballard, and snatched one of his chickens. His two girls, ages 6 and 8, saw it happen — “a lesson for them in the ’Circle of Life,’ ” Daniel said.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be last-quarter on Sunday. Venus rises in the east a few hours before dawn. Mars is low in the southwest at dusk. Jupiter and Saturn are low in the east just before dawn. Venus joins Jupiter near the moon before dawn on Thursday.
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