I have a raptor hanging around my area trying to eat my bird. For the last few days I haven't been able to let my little bird out to roam and scratch around my back yard after she sqarked, flapped and ran over to me with fright. I scooped her up and looked up and there was a raptor circling above. Then again today she freaked out, so again scooped her up, looked up and the raptor was just disappearing over the house. It was a really close call, it got quite close, as low as my roof!
I usually let my bird out while I'm doing work in the yard, so as I can keep an eye on her, watch out for cats etc. But this raptor is very cheeky, I was only about 1.5m from her today when it tried to get her, so I'm afraid to let her out of her aviary at all.
I live about a block from a creek in suburban Melbourne, so going by the 'bird finder' on here, I think it may be a Black Falcon. It's shape while in flight is very falcon like (going by images in a bird book I have), but info I can find say Black Falcons are uncommon.
Can anyone help me find out if there are many Black Falcons around north western Melbourne?
And if so, is it likely to hang around my area for long, or move on?
I fear for my beloved little bird.
I think the most common falcon in urban situations is the brown falcon, also known as the chicken hawk.
Thanks for the response GlenL.
It could very well be a Brown Falcon, but it's colour and shape make me think otherwise. It is a dark grey/black kind of colour, and it's silhouette while circling appears to have pointed wing tips, rather than fanned. I also thought it could possibly be a Peregrine Falcon. I thought it is pretty unlikely to be the Black or Peregrine, but I thought that maybe it could have followed the green creek corridor into the suburbs, following the abundant prey along the creek. There are alot of Starlings and Mynas in the area, and it is quite green.
But I don't really know, it could just be a dark Brown Falcon and I'm just getting way to excited haha.
One thing I find helps when iding birds is google images. The photos in field guides are limited and birds vary a bit. Today I had a good look at what I thought was a whistling kite but it didn't quite look like the pictures I had. When I googled I found pictures exactly like the bird I saw, I was much happier with the id.