I went to the ranch today road isn't plugged up yet but it will be soon. Not sure what hawk it is but it had killed two close to where he is on one in the picture. To the left is another spot were tail feathers and a lot of feathers where he got another one. The magpies are feasting on what is left of that one.

Elmer Keith wrote about solving such problems.

Oh I think they thin out more than pheasants.

Oh I bet they do. I will spots of feathers now till spring a lot get killed.

hawks overhead and the dogs nose needs to be about 6 inches from the bird before the go up

Figure a hawk has as much right or more to pheasants than we do

That one obviously has a taste for pheasant and a refined method of taking one

Sure that's a hawk not an immature eagle. Body shape and head look not quite correct for a hawk.

Looks like an eagle to me also.

I dont think its wrong for a human to kill competition predators any more than it is for bobcats to kill housecats, wolves to kill coyotes, coyotes to kill fox etc. We humans are at least smart enough to not eradicate competing predators.

Could be a young golden for sure. I just can't tell but yes it has the characteristics of an eagle. Balds and goldens I see all the time there.

I say golden eagle, they are he double hockey sticks on pheasants, bald eagles would rather nose thru a road kill than hunt

That's called wildlife management. It used to be common practice before wildlife management went woke.

Here is the first picture of coming for the kill. You can see the tail feathers of the pheasant off to the left dug down in snow right in front of magpie. Other pheasants in back ground.

eagle

Are you feeding the pheasants?
Here, the sharp-shinned and coopers hawks make periodic visits to the bird feeders....nothing like a concentrated buffet for predators...heck,they gotta eat too, lol

No not feeding but an alfalfa field that was only cut once in early spring has headed out and the seed pods is what they are after. The deer will be here a lot soon getting down to the seeds and new growth under the three foot tall snow fallen alfalfa.

It depends on the number of raptors an area has not that a guy can do anything about it nature eventually takes care of over populations if nothing is done about it. Bird flu fixed the problem here with way too many raptors, checking traps in the winter it was nothing to see 1-2 raptors in every section of land. The flu greatly reduced those numbers in the last several years around the lake I’m on. Seems to of whacked the owl population also but the Eagle numbers seem untouched.

Neighbor lost his chickens and guineas to the bird flu but never lost any ducks it seems to have little impact on the eagles that follow the flocks of geese their numbers are strong .

I’d guess that’s a golden by it’s looks I’d drag home a roadkill deer if you want to take pressure off the pheasants.