Do buzzards take pigeons?

Question

Recently I've seen two or three buzzards overhead, sometimes calling. I know that this is the adults way to get the young to leave the family group, but also pigeon feathers have appeared in the garden, plucked out. They are haphazard, not in a circle like a sparrowhawk. Do buzzards take pigeons? & if so, do they take them on the wing?

Answer 1

Buzzards will take pretty much anything they can, and if the opportunity arises they would take a pigeon. They mainly take rabbit and ground feeding birds,eg grouse, partridge etc. Pigeons however are speedy birds and it is unlikely that a buzzard would have the aglity to outwit one. Pigeons feathers could be the result of other prey.

Answer 2

Vultures are carrion eaters and too slow by far to catch a pigeon. Vultures hardly ever bother another bird; if they are starving they may kill a sick or injured rabbit (simply because they can't kill a healthy one) for food if they cannot find something already dead. When the vulture rips into the dead pigeon, the feathers that are left behind may be what you are seeing, if it was even the vulture's fault at all. Red-tailed Hawks are large and could possibly be mistaken for a vulture I suppose. They are also too slow to catch a pigeon in the air but do kill them when they can. The main predators of pigeons are the Cooper's Hawk (Chicken Hawk), Sharp-shinned Hawk, Merlin (Pigeon hawk), and the Peregrine Falcon (Duck Hawk). Cooper's and Sharp-shins like to sneak through the woods and catch their prey while falcons and Red-tails like open areas more. If you've got a lot of woods, the first two are probably the problem.
Anything could have killed the pigeon though really. A cat or dog could have gotten a hold of it and plucked out some feathers, or even a owl at night could have snatched it up. The main thing here is that no, vultures do not take pigeons whether they are at roost or in the air. The only pigeon they'll ever eat is a dead one.

- Becky

Answer 3

If , by buzzards you actually mean red tailed hawks (which are the most common hawks in the US and often fly in pairs calling to defend their territory) then yes, they do take pigeons but only on the ground. They are ground hunters and will take ground birds (like quail) and pigeons and other birds like mourning doves when they land on the ground. They feed primarily on rodents and snakes, however. If by 'buzzard' you mean vultures (which i have never heard calling) then no. The vultures take only dead and dying animals and do not kill birds on the wing or on the ground.
Falcons (accipters) are the only birds that hunt other birds on the wing. Typically birds like the perigrine and harris hawk will take birds in the air, the hawks (buteos) do not.

Answer 4

Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) in the US are known to take birds and even bats on the wing, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that Buzzards in the UK do the same. Birds aren't a huge proportion of any buteo's diet, as far as I know, simply because small mammals or reptiles are far easier to nab, but when the opportunity arises, why not?

Answer 5

Are you talking about the European buzzard, or one of the American buzzards e.g. red-tailed hawk? They are all of the genus Buteo, and they do not catch their prey on the wing, preferring to hunt ground-based animals from teh air.

Some people in the US incorrectly refer to the turkey vulture as a buzzard. They are carrion eaters.

Answer 6

First off see this link as Buzzard means different birds in different parts of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzard

But you will find they eat mainly carrion and may scavenge, also take eggs and decomposing plant material, and can kill or injure new-born or incapacitated mammals. So dead, young or eggs of pigeons maybe on the diet.

However peregrine falcons do feed on doves, pigeons, grouse, shorebirds, and jays

Answer 7

Yes, Buzzards do prey upon pigeons.

Answer 8

Whatever