Mystery Deaths

[finchbreeder]

Odd happenings - yesterday mum found a small dead partly consumed hawk near her avairys, this morning I found a largish dead hawk near my avairys. And I am curious if it would be more likely to be, poisoning, a disease, or starvation due to the cold and lack of food. When I rang mum mid morning this morning, she had 2 more reasonable size hawks hanging round argueing with each other, persumably over the further consumed remains of the smaller hawk.
LML

[iaos]

Any idea on species?

[finchbreeder]

Sorry I forget that not everyone knows that the common hawk round here is the goshawk.
LML

[Jayburd]

That's brown goshawk I'm guessing (not grey?)
No idea why, but shall be very interested to find out if and when you find a cause.

[Pete Sara]

I found a dead one the other week. It looked more like a hobby, looked like old age , but it was after the cold snap we had here....pete

[mattymeischke]

I have a possible idea as to why.

Tawny frogmouths eat a lot of insects, and some of the insects have sublethal quantities of insecticides in their system. Some pesticides can accumulate in fat, and affected birds remain well until the winter months, when the insect supply dries up and they draw on their fat reserves. The mobilisation of the fat mobilises the insecticide residues and the bird dies of delayed secondary poisoning. I had a tawny frogmouth brought to me a couple of weeks ago in poor condition (I am the crazy bird guy on the hill here, and many sick birds get brought to me, most of which I have to euthanase). It was reportedly twitching and losing balance. It was dropped off in the mid afternoon and put in a dark, warm room; unfortunately it died before I got home from work. It was very light, with a very prominent keel.

I don't know if goshawks take a lot of insects, maybe it's half-poisoned rodents, but perhaps something similar is happening to them.
Just a thought...

[finchbreeder]

Well a chat with our local Raptor lady/expert elicited the information that there was a population explosion of these birds last season due to optimum conditions. e.g. good crops = increased mice and insect food availability. And apparently someone has been taking pop shots as our Raptor lady has had a number of her recent captures with pellets in. She catches and re-homes further out. To the local "Men's Shed" guys who are making more traps for her. Now I have to inspect the body I have here and let her know if that appears to be the case.
LML

[finchbreeder]

Well an inspection showed a very nice looking scarecrow. Poor thing was skin and bone. Talking further to our Raptor lady, she confirmed that she has stopped releasing trapped birds into the wild due to the very harsh summer we have had and is now keeping them - slight population explosion in her big avairys - until things pickup. As she does not want to have them bugging us aviculturists. Mum caught the one of the 2 that has stayed round her place, and it has just (last hour) been picked up to go join the others in Raptor avairy.
LML

[arthur]

Pix of traps, Plz

[finchbreeder]

http://care.raptor.id.au/contact.html
For anyone who has hawk problems and wants them dealt with the humane way. This site is Australia wide. Except Victoria for some strange reason.
LML