How to attract birds of prey to our backyards.

Good morning friends and family! I just saw a hawk on Christmas day in my backyard sitting on one of the trees. It just sat there a long time and didn't get to see what happened to the hawk whether it stood or go. Which type of habitat do hawks, falcons and others need in order to hunt and nest? I'm from an urban area a got a lot of mice and rats roaming around all the time for garbage and scraps and folks depend on exterminators to rid of them from their homes and alleys. Many of these folks use chemicals as a quick way out of the problem, while at the end cause greater harm to our nearby eco systems and other places of refuge for wildlife. I mostly have red tail and Cooper hawks, kestrels, pergrine falcons and turkey vultures in my neighborhood. There are also stray cats to concern ourselves about as they're a major threat to all native local birds including our predators. How we keep our birds of prey well sheltered from stray cats which are seen in mostly urban communities? If you all have any feedback, throw some back to me and we'll go from there. Peace always!

Funny you should mention this; I just bought 2 smaller owl/kestrel birdhouses to put up in my neighbor's giant pines on the north side of my property.    They are proportioned like regular Audubon-type wooden birdhouses except they are much bigger.  I haven't put them up yet (my friend who is an arborist tree climber is going to put them up this week). At least 15 feet high up and facing north-ish is supposed to be ideal, and hopefully away from nighttime security lights so they get true darkness.   I have very many raised beds made with logs and are Hugel-esque with lots of rough woody material in the beds.  The logs and big branches came from clearing the site (mostly Norway Maple and struggling Norway Spruce).  
Meaning: I provided perfect rodent housing, food, socializing areas.  I have an assortment of voles, larger voles, mice, and as I live in a closely populated area where people have backyard chickens: rats. Ugh.
Snap traps work to a certain degree but I hate it that occasionally a small bird gets trapped in them (WHY?? not baited with anything; maybe they are attracted to the yellow plastic cheese?)   I of course refuse to use poison.  So I am putting these owl/kestrel houses up.  I'll keep y'all posted if they become inhabited by the birds of prey that I am hoping and not by squirrels or starlings.  I would just love a reduction in the local rodent population.

Don't you have your own trees to put your houses up? How long it took for you to clear an area full of Norway Maples and other trees? Could owls nest in boxes depending on size and width?

It is interesting what you picked up on.  My neighbor is delighted about having owl boxes in his big pines- they are right on my property line.  I took down the old, damaged and broken Norways because they were shading my little plot and in quite bad shape, and used the limbs, logs and chips to build my raised Hugelbeds.  It took a day of clearing and a day of piling up limbs, etc.  with a skid steer.  Owls do like to nest in boxes; these holes are sized for the smaller owls and hawks and kestrels who are great rodent hunters.  But it's all theory as of now because I have the boxes but haven't put them up yet!  I know that some vineyards in CA have had great success in reducing rodent populations by putting up bird of prey nesting boxes every couple of hundred feet or so, on 15-20  foot  posts.

I didn't realize you could put up boxes for owls! I have at least 2 in my area because I hear them hooting back and forth to each other. I don't mind owls but I try to discourage hawks since I prefer my egg layers to be alive. On that note, I have a wonderful population of ravens to keep my chickens safe and I wonder if they go after rodents, too. (They are very good at stealing eggs and also sit in with my chickens when I dump the food waste bucket).

I put a nest for barn owls up in my hay barn several years ago, and a nest for Kestrel on a very high corner post of the orchard fence a few years ago. Both weren't used until the second season they were in place. Here is where I got the necessary info (size, height, placement and orientation) for the kestrel nest: Kestrel nest info  This winter I will inform myself about cleaning regimen and then tend to that task: I presume, since these are human made, they will require maintenance so the babies don't sicken in old leavings. The owl nest is about 20 feet up, so I'm not looking forward to that task.  



Shoot, these photos from my google photos don't work with the Img button. Help, please.

Cleaning research done: both should be cleaned, and the owl box should have been cleaned in November (shoot). Better late than never??

I'm eating this up as I'd like to build nesting boxes for *small* owls and raptors. Wild barn cats are most dangerous to nesting wrens, and robins, so I do not invite them: Having a lot of insect eating birds is a delight: I put up some bluebird houses and the yard is pretty much pest free. We have red tailed hawk and eagles. I suspect it was eagles or hawks that got a couple of my chickens when they were smaller. To ward against that, I restrict the size of their paddock a bit so they are all within earshot of each other. One screams they all run back to the coop. I plan to build more houses so please keep the ideas coming!

How we create habitat for kestrels since they're becoming more rarer and rarer to find in or near urban areas? How wide should the nest box be for these birds to breed and raise their young. I'd like to see what young kestrels look like and their nesting area.

Blake Lenoir wrote:How we create habitat for kestrels since they're becoming more rarer and rarer to find in or near urban areas? How wide should the nest box be for these birds to breed and raise their young. I'd like to see what young kestrels look like and their nesting area.

This one has a nice building plans, with measurements:
https://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/american-kestrel-nest-box.html
As they eat voles, mice, shrews, grasshoppers etc. they would have plenty to eat if only they came here, and my chickens are much too big for them to be attacked by this small falcon. I think I have enough lumber to make them at least a box. With an opening hole of 3", though, I fear that squirrels might be the first to squat there...
Here are more ideas to attract them here:
https://extension.psu.edu/managing-habitat-for-american-kestrels

 Excellent work by Raptor View on monitoring the kestrel population  and how they mate! How come the females don't get collar band as much as the males and fledgelings?

I would suggest game chickens to lure in bird of prey, I have seen a hawk 3 times today, with them at range, last time I went out, they where still in a field, with the hawk, as soon as it flew away, they where foraging in field again, it’s like their almost friends, or know they can out fly it given head start. I’ll see the hawk often in the middle of field, today it swooped down and rested on a muscadine trellis pole.  Hawk activity increased quite higher, when I let them out of coop. I think another mention is they don’t hunt well with bushy habitat, prefer to hunt in open understory or in open field.  It’s a type of bird feeder, if you like hawks not much loss letting your friends eat dinner at your place.  Given it maybe more helpful to hawk to give them domesticated chickens, as he’s been hunting months, hasn’t got one bird… I’ll give you it’s a gamble like this when they will have chicks, but I have seen a hawk up close get beat back by a mama hen with chicks, somehow they’ve survived this way before. It was really neat watching a hawk eat one of my birds before.

Blake Lenoir wrote: I mostly have red tail and Cooper hawks, kestrels, pergrine falcons and turkey vultures in my neighborhood. There are also stray cats to concern ourselves about as they're a major threat to all native local birds including our predators. How we keep our birds of prey well sheltered from stray cats which are seen in mostly urban communities? If you all have any feedback, throw some back to me and we'll go from there. Peace always!

Get a dovecote and pigeons and I guarantee you will see the predators if they’re there.

I had ONE pigeon and ONE birdhouse for him, three hawks and an owl chased him around my house until he never came home. Never thought about it like this but it related to a lot of my hobby work, I do environmental design here and there.

Started with aquarium fish and ponds and realized my environmental carrying capacity went up because breeding neocardinia shrimp makes tanks cleaner for the fish. Plants helped the babies not be eaten. All these little relationships and the nuance between them create a great synergy if you do it right. If you do it wrong you get Australia’s horrible invasive problem but you just avoid doing dangerous things like bringing in invasive animals or plants. Simple and complex pond structure as a concept help a lot with the water and many small animals like rabbit habitat, quail habitat, etc.

The relationship the bright white pigeons have with all birds of prey is “the ideal meal”. They’re bigger than songbirds and easier to spot and catch. Great risk reward and return on investment.

I too love having the birds of prey around. We have a coopers hawk who regularly hunts the backyard where there a lot of trees. In the front we have a red tail hawk who uses the phone pole to rest. There are two different owl hoots at night(I don't know my owls). I haven't done anything to encourage them other than sending them some positive vibrations. Please everyone avoid using poison to solve a rodent problem, I'd hate to lose any of these majestic creatures to a tainted rat snack. There are a number of dog breeds which are really good at hunting the vermin.

I don't have any science to back this up, but I have heard that if you have crows around, they will scare away birds of prey. In my case, I had a family of crows living on our land, and only saw a bird of prey once. Perhaps there is a bit of truth the the tale? If this is true, then you would want to discourage crows from your yard, to get more birds of prey.

this doesn’t help the original question, but i’ve got both nesting crows and nesting red tail hawks on my land, relatively near each other. they definitely get on each other’s nerves, and i think the crows keep the hawks from actively hunting right here (a good thing, since this is where the chickens live), but the crows don’t really keep the hawks away entirely.

I use this strategy too keep rodents away from my property too. But the most important thing is clearing all of the underbrush from the property and leaving ONLY hard packed soil and trees is the best way. Like a lunar landscape. Makes the rodent easy pickings for the birds. Got rid if most of mine after I did this in AZ.

Howdy folks! Missed you all on this page. How we draw kestrels and pergine falcons to our backyards? I'm looking for more ways to draw not only red tail and cooper hawks and turkey vultures to our backyards and communities, but also more types of birds of prey for diversity and richness of life to the ecosystem. Good to see you all!

Greetings! Missed you all on here. I'd like to find out how we make kestrel boxes in our backyards so we can have them year in and year out. There are more mice and insects in our backyards these days. Could I please see the instructions on how we make a kestrel box for our backyards. Have a good day!