This is going to be difficult to type so bare with me.

I'm sitting in the kitchen opening a snack while I look out the window to see the birds. I all of a sudden see my birds panicking and flying around. I was curious, then I saw something fly fast. Then it perched on the bird roof quickly, them it tried to go in the cage wire. It was...it was...A HAWK. I am shaking. I feel like I'm going to die. I need help. :'(

Here is a picture

My baby Shodu got hurt.



I am going to destroy that hawk!

I think Shodu must have hit something in the chaos. I don't think the hawk did it to him.

I know the bird hit himself but the hawk caused it. Oh yeah, I don't really mean that I'm going to kill the hawk. Don't worry guys. I'm just VERY scared.

How awful for you.
Shodu certainly has his "hair" standing on end.
I wasn't able to see the injury. Was it near his cere?
How is he doing now?
Sending good thoughts for you and Shodu, and hoping that hawk goes far, far away.

You're lucky that this hasn't happened before. I have hawks in the yard pretty much every day. Hawks are protected by federal law so you can't legally do anything that would harm the hawk.

I hope this hawk is just passing through, but he HAS noticed your birds and might hang around until he's figured out that he can't get them. Here are some links with tips for discouraging hawks:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/makeahomeforwild ... hawks.aspx Look down near the bottom under 'Deterrents'.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/73540 ... eter-hawks

http://nature.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 36.html?93 This one has an annoying amount of chitchat. The most helpful post says "You may be able to discourage the hawk by foiling the roost. Run a wire with some dangling things to discourage the hawk from setting on the fence. The wire would need to be suspended above the top fence rail but floppy enough to make it unstable. A hardware store should have what you would need to do this. We use this sort of set up to keep large birds from rooting on boats (for obvious reasons). But, if there are trees nearby, the hawk will just change position. You could also go out with the dogs at first to scare it off."

In your case, hanging some dangly stuff off the aviary roof might help keep the hawk away from the aviary wire. At the same time, try to create a sheltered area inside the aviary where the birds can hide if they feel threatened. That's partly what the cloth-shaded nook inside my aviary is for. http://home.comcast.net/~ch_zonie/crafts-carpentry.html Look at the last picture in the second row.

Thank you guys. I really appreciate it.

The hawk really left a bruise in my heart. I get scared just thinking about it. Yesterday, when I scared the hawk away, it looked at me straight in the eye and gave me this face. It looked like death saying "I'm coming back for you."

When I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Yesterday morning, Shodu's beak had a lot if blood. Then, my younger brother said that he saw a raccoon staring at the birds and was trying to figure out a a way to eat them. My brother scared it away.

I covered the aviary with tarp to protect them.

Should I give away my birds? I really don't want to keep them if everyday is going to be a life and death situation. I feel like they will be much happier somewhere that predictors won't try to kill them.

It HAS happened before. About 2 years ago, a hawk killed 2 of my birds. Cloudia, and Pearly. That's why I am so scared of it. We just assumed that a hawk killed them because we never saw it happened, but this just proves that a hawk did kill them. AND I only have one layer of wiring for the aviary.

Oh my gosh Baruch! I'm so sorry! Stupid hawk!

The current wiring has smaller spaces which will make it harder to reach through the wire to get the birds. A second layer of wiring a few inches away from the first layer will make it impossible to reach the birds even if they manage to get a leg through the outer wire. But just the attempt to reach the birds will be terrifying, even if the predator can't reach them.

Do you know anyone with a paintball gun? Shooting a hawk with a paintball is illegal and I don't recommend it, but I've heard that it's an effective way to make them move on, and won't do serious harm to the hawk unless you hit a particularly vulnerable area. It might work on raccoons too. Raccoons are mostly nocturnal so simply covering the aviary at night or bringing the birds inside will help discourage them. Hawks are obviously active in the daytime, but it might help to hang something dangly in front of the aviary wire to make it harder for them to cling to the wire. Or find some other kind of obstacle to discourage the hawk, like hanging some old bedsheets on the top half of the aviary to screen the birds from view. You haven't had continuous hawk problems in the past so if you can make this one hawk get discouraged and leave it'll probably be a long time before the next one shows up.