Every bird in your yard is prey to something, and almost everything it does all day is shaped by that: where it feeds, when, for how long, who it feeds next to, and why it freezes or explodes into flight at a shadow. Once you know what to look for, the yard turns into a running drama with rules. This is a guide to those rules: how backyard birds detect predators, what they do about it, and what it means for where you put a feeder.
Who’s hunting the yard
Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks are the main threat at feeders across the country: short-winged, long-tailed hawks built to dodge through branches and snatch a bird off a perch. A third of Southwest FeederWatch yards report one. Outdoor and feral cats kill more birds in the U.S. than every other human-related cause combined, an estimated 1 to 4 billion a year. Crows, jays, grackles, and squirrels take eggs and nestlings. Rat snakes raid nest boxes in the South and East. Raccoons work nest boxes and low nests at night. Screech owls take roosting songbirds after dark.
How birds see it coming
A songbird’s eyes sit on the sides of its head, which gives it a nearly 360-degree field of view at the cost of depth perception straight ahead. That’s why a feeding bird lifts its head every few seconds: it’s scanning, not resting. Feeding in a flock lets each bird scan less and eat more, because forty pairs of eyes catch a hawk sooner than one; that’s the whole reason finches and juncos travel in groups in winter. Birds also listen. Chickadees give a specific alarm call whose number of “dee” notes scales with how dangerous the predator is (a perched hawk gets more dees than a passing one), and every other species in the yard understands it.
Hear a hawk before you see it? Here’s why hawks screech and how to tell which hawk is calling.
What they do about it
Freeze
The first response to a hawk overhead is total stillness. A cardinal on a branch becomes a leaf. Watch a feeder go silent and every bird lock in place for ten seconds, then resume; a hawk just passed.
Scatter into cover
Songbirds dive for the nearest dense shrub or evergreen, which is why a feeder more than fifteen feet from cover gets fewer visitors: the math of getting back to safety doesn’t work. It’s also why a feeder within three feet of cover gets fewer: cats.
Mob
Small birds gang up on a perched hawk or owl, calling and diving at it until it leaves. If you hear a sudden racket of jays, chickadees, and titmice all scolding one spot, look there; you’ll find an owl or a hawk. Crows mob red-tailed hawks and great horned owls the same way, in bigger numbers and louder.
Distract
A killdeer with a nest in a gravel driveway will limp away from you dragging a “broken” wing, crying, until you’re far enough from the eggs, then fly off perfectly. Ground-nesting birds do this across the country; so do some songbirds, less theatrically.
Nest where predators can’t reach
Cavity nesters (chickadees, titmice, bluebirds, wrens, woodpeckers) accept the risk of a single entrance because it keeps out most things. Cup nesters hide the nest in thorns, forks, and dense foliage. Robins and doves nest near people on purpose, because hawks and crows avoid porches. Some nests are lined with snakeskin or aromatic leaves, likely to deter predators and parasites.
Time it
Feeders are busiest in the first two hours after sunrise and the last before dusk, when hawks are less active and the birds need calories most. Midday lulls at the feeder aren’t a sign something’s wrong; they’re the birds waiting out the most dangerous part of the day.
Wondering whether the hawk hunting your feeder birds is a risk to your family or pets? See are hawks dangerous to humans?
What it means for your feeder
Put the feeder 10 to 15 feet from a dense shrub or brush pile: close enough to reach in one flight, far enough that a cat can’t ambush from it. Keep cats indoors or in a catio; a bell on the collar does almost nothing. If a Cooper’s hawk sets up on the yard, take the feeders down for a week and the hawk moves on; the songbirds return in days. Clean up spilled seed so it doesn’t draw the rats that draw the owls, and don’t use rodent poison, which kills the hawks and owls that eat the poisoned rodents. Window collisions kill as many birds as hawks do: put the feeder either within three feet of the glass or more than thirty feet from it, and use window decals or screens on big panes. Details in essential rules for attracting birds.
Why the hawk is good news
A Cooper’s hawk in the yard means the yard is producing enough birds to feed one. Hawk numbers have grown for forty years as suburbs matured and feeders spread, and they take mostly the slow and sick. Watching one work a feeder from the kitchen window is the most dramatic thing a backyard offers, and the finches will be back tomorrow.
Related: Keeping grackles off feeders · Keeping squirrels off feeders · The ultimate bird bath guide
