Raptors in Your Backyard:
Understanding Hawks, Owls & Falcons

🎯 The Predator-Prey Connection

After 25 years of observing backyard feeding stations across diverse habitats, I can tell you with absolute certainty: if you build a successful feeding station, raptors will come. This isn't a problem — it's proof that your yard has become a functional ecosystem. A bird feeder doesn't just attract chickadees and cardinals; it creates a concentrated food resource that ripples up the entire food chain.

Raptors are drawn to feeding stations by the same biological imperative that drives songbirds to your seed: energy efficiency. A Cooper's Hawk that discovers a reliable congregation of House Sparrows at your tube feeder has found the avian equivalent of a favorite restaurant. The hawk's hunting success rate at feeders can be significantly higher than in scattered woodland foraging.

🔬 What Science Tells Us About Predation

Ornithological research consistently shows that raptor predation at feeding stations does not significantly reduce local songbird populations. Raptors primarily take individuals that are already compromised — the sick, the injured, the old, and the inattentive. This is called compensatory mortality: these birds would likely have died from other causes (disease, starvation, exposure) even without predation.

In fact, raptor presence can actually improve the overall health of your feeder bird community by:

🏆 The Raptor Litmus Test

In my decades of consulting on backyard bird habitats, I use a simple benchmark: Has a raptor visited within the past 30 days? If yes, the station is generating enough biological activity to attract a top predator. That means sufficient prey diversity, adequate cover structure, reliable food resources, and a functioning micro-ecosystem. Raptors are the ultimate stamp of ecological approval.

🌙 The Backyard Owl You Didn't Know You Had

Eastern Screech-Owls (Megascops asio) and Western Screech-Owls (Megascops kennicottii) are among the most common raptors in suburban North America — and the most overlooked. These compact, 8–10 inch owls are cavity nesters that readily accept properly designed and placed nest boxes. I've helped install over 200 screech owl boxes over my career, and the occupancy rates are genuinely impressive when the habitat is right.

Unlike the hawks at your feeder, screech owls operate at night. They're insectivores, small-mammal specialists, and occasional takers of small birds. Their presence adds an entirely new dimension to your backyard ecosystem — a nocturnal predator layer that complements the diurnal raptors.

📉 A Declining Falcon That Responds to Conservation

The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) — North America's smallest and most colorful falcon — has experienced population declines of approximately 50% since the 1960s in many parts of its range. The causes are multifactorial: habitat loss, pesticide exposure, cavity competition from European Starlings, and the systematic removal of old wooden fence posts and dead trees that once provided abundant nesting cavities.

The good news? Kestrels readily accept nest boxes. Citizen-driven nest box programs have been among the most successful raptor conservation tools ever deployed. If your property borders open grassland, agricultural fields, or large meadows, you may be perfectly positioned to participate.

📋 How to Start or Join a Kestrel Nest Box Program

The most successful kestrel box programs follow a structured approach. Here's what decades of community-science programs have taught us about what works:

⚖️ The Core Principle

The foundation of ethical raptor coexistence is simple but sometimes difficult to accept: Predation is not cruelty. It is ecology. When you run a feeding station, you are participating in a natural system. That system includes predators. The most ethical response is to observe, appreciate, and never intervene in the natural predator-prey dynamic unfolding in your yard.

I say this with compassion — I understand the emotional difficulty of watching a hawk take a bird you've been feeding all winter. But every intervention distorts the natural balance you've worked to create. The hawk needs to eat too. Your role is steward, not referee.

📝 The Ethical Coexistence Protocol (Step by Step)

When a raptor begins visiting your feeder, follow this evidence-based response protocol developed over decades of field observation:

🎓 Final Words from 25 Years in the Field

I've spent a quarter of a century watching raptors interact with backyard feeding stations, and the single most important lesson I've learned is this: the best backyard birders are the ones who welcome the entire community — predators included. The chickadee at your tube feeder and the Cooper's Hawk watching it from the hemlock are both part of the same story. One doesn't exist without the other.

Your feeding station is not a zoo exhibit or a protected sanctuary. It's a window into a living, breathing ecosystem that follows rules far older than any human yard. The hawks, owls, and falcons that visit are not intruders — they are the final proof that you've built something real. Something alive. Something wild.

Embrace the entire food web. Install nest boxes. Document what you see. Educate your neighbors. And never, ever apologize for the hawk.