At 05:31 PM 10/14/96 -0800, you wrote:
>A question for Tweets.
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>Michael Price, in speaking of Vancouver's urban peregrines, noted that
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>>Anyway, when you're a pigeon, all hands are turned against you.
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>me: "So doesn't anything eat starlings?!"

>-- Janet Hardin
> Port Townsend, WA
> wings at olypus.net
>
>reaching back to the '30's--i was in a group of young falconers (several
species of falcons including gyrs) in wash dc and we came up with the bright
idea of catching starlings wholesale, freezing them for hawk food. a friend
and i went out into maryland farmland to barn in current use as a winter
roost by starlings. we did not check with owner since it was a 2am visit.
with 2 flashlights and 4 gunny sacks we climbed up into the hay loft roused
up the starlings until several hundred were flying around in the dark then
turned on the flash lights and stuffed birds as they landed on the lighted
spot into the sacks. we tied them off and climbed down and out of the barn
with months' supply of food we thought--deep freezed em. after a few, very
few meals the hawks rebelled and would not eat enough to keep them fit to
fly. chucked the lot and waited for the spring migration and collected
bushels of warblers and other small birds killed by flying into the
washington monument. would freeze these birds to keep them. excellent food
and well accepted. so much for the "flying rats" great name for starlings.
starlings are probable not a steady source of food for peregrines etc.

the white house area great place to gather in rock doves. one falconer had a
european style great coat with 12 pockets to a side -24 birds in all. the
hawk feeding problem was solved creatively when $$$$'s were in short supply
in those days.

bill

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