Saw a thread earlier about birds being a problem or not, but figured I'd post this as a new thread rather than a reply to that (which was a few weeks old) so it was a little more visible.
Probably a month ago, I bought a few Southern Ibera Greeks from a breeder we all know in the Northeast. I knew they were to go with a group we already had here, so I added them to the group to get some time to transition down for a month or more and sleep thru the winter in their eventual enclosure. They were yearlings and about 2.5-3" size.
We keep a lot of our tortoises in a remote area surrounded by cameras, and the cameras send me alerts to my phone with video and sound. I get several alerts every day (and more at night) about a rabbit running by, or a bird flying past, or a spider or bee right up in the camera lens, but this one happened on October 16th in the middle of the day and really pissed me off. A raven had found one of those two greeks, and flew up and perched right in front of one of my cameras with it. I found it later as an empty shell, just pecked out (limbs were there, but head was gone, and anything else it could pull out behind the head). All the other tortoises there are 4-5"+ size, and this has never been a problem before, but these smaller ones apparently still are. I know ravens eat a lot of baby desert tortoises here, but I figured at 2.5" size and very hardened, these were not going to be an issue. I was definitely wrong.
Just wanted to post this in case anyone was debating what size this can be an issue for.... We had 3" western Hermanns out there also and the other greek like this one that have both been brought inside again. We are building some very tight tolerance enclosures this winter with tops on them to keep out birds and rodents for these smaller tortoises going forward. Last summer we had a huge coyote problem, finally fenced in about 1/4 acre with a tall fence that goes down into the ground, but now it's a bird problem. Too may taller trees to easily put a top on it all. Before the coyotes was a rodent problem, we just keep traps out for them full time now, as they are never ending. Didn't realize I had a bird problem.
A few nights ago an owl landed on a camera at 2:30 AM also, set off the alarm, woke me up, and I was watching the video live. It flew away for 30 seconds at a time and then came back over and over and left beak (bite) marks all over the rubber cover on the camera. Not sure if they are a tortoise problem, either, but I'm still gonna be more careful with the less than 4" stuff.
Raven video here: https://scontent.flas1-1.fna.fbcdn....=f4ed24cbbcad10ac3c904503adb67bb7&oe=5E56A1F8
Owl video here: 75866447_231577644477326_6949554709707623980_n.mp4
Probably a month ago, I bought a few Southern Ibera Greeks from a breeder we all know in the Northeast. I knew they were to go with a group we already had here, so I added them to the group to get some time to transition down for a month or more and sleep thru the winter in their eventual enclosure. They were yearlings and about 2.5-3" size.
We keep a lot of our tortoises in a remote area surrounded by cameras, and the cameras send me alerts to my phone with video and sound. I get several alerts every day (and more at night) about a rabbit running by, or a bird flying past, or a spider or bee right up in the camera lens, but this one happened on October 16th in the middle of the day and really pissed me off. A raven had found one of those two greeks, and flew up and perched right in front of one of my cameras with it. I found it later as an empty shell, just pecked out (limbs were there, but head was gone, and anything else it could pull out behind the head). All the other tortoises there are 4-5"+ size, and this has never been a problem before, but these smaller ones apparently still are. I know ravens eat a lot of baby desert tortoises here, but I figured at 2.5" size and very hardened, these were not going to be an issue. I was definitely wrong.
Just wanted to post this in case anyone was debating what size this can be an issue for.... We had 3" western Hermanns out there also and the other greek like this one that have both been brought inside again. We are building some very tight tolerance enclosures this winter with tops on them to keep out birds and rodents for these smaller tortoises going forward. Last summer we had a huge coyote problem, finally fenced in about 1/4 acre with a tall fence that goes down into the ground, but now it's a bird problem. Too may taller trees to easily put a top on it all. Before the coyotes was a rodent problem, we just keep traps out for them full time now, as they are never ending. Didn't realize I had a bird problem.
A few nights ago an owl landed on a camera at 2:30 AM also, set off the alarm, woke me up, and I was watching the video live. It flew away for 30 seconds at a time and then came back over and over and left beak (bite) marks all over the rubber cover on the camera. Not sure if they are a tortoise problem, either, but I'm still gonna be more careful with the less than 4" stuff.
Raven video here: https://scontent.flas1-1.fna.fbcdn....=f4ed24cbbcad10ac3c904503adb67bb7&oe=5E56A1F8
Owl video here: 75866447_231577644477326_6949554709707623980_n.mp4