•Mockingbirds have green and yellow shades in their eyes

•Mockingbirds are a medium-sized songbird.

•They have small heads, a long, thin bill with a little downward curve, and long legs. Their wings are short, rounded, and broad.

•Mockingbirds are overall gray-brown, lighter on the breast and belly, with two white wing bars on each wing.

•In Texas, the northern mockingbird lives in gardens, parks, brushy areas, in open country with thickets, trees, farmland, desert brush and along roadsides

•The reason for the naming of the mockingbird is because of its unusual characteristics.

•The mockingbird are best known for the habit of mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians along with many other noises as well, often loudly and in rapid succession.

•The mockingbird is best known for its ability to imitate the songs and calls of other birds. Mockingbirds have been known to imitate a variety of other noises as well, including sirens, pianos and even barking dogs! They also have over 40 distinct sounds

•There are about seventeen species of mockingbirds, most of which are tropical

•Often referred to as the "American nightingale“

•Male mockingbirds sing more often and more stridently than females of the species, and unmated males more than their mated peers.

•While many think this bird is detrimental to fruit crops the truth is, it is an important bird in an agricultural sense

•NO!!! You may not eat mockingbirds because they are a non-game bird and are protected by the state and do to the fact that they may not be the best tasting bird.

•Why would you want to kill mockingbirds? They don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.

•Like almost all non-game birds, the northern mockingbird has been strictly protected by state and federal laws for more than seventy years

•The Northern Mockingbird feeds on fruits and berries of holly, smilax, woodbine, sumac and other plants.

•Some times crops such as grapes, blackberries, and figs, are also favorites of the mockingbird

•In addition to fruits, this bird also eats harmful weevils, cucumber beetles, chinch bugs, and grasshoppers.

•The cardinal is about eight inches in length. It has a black mask on its face, a crest on its head and a short cone-shaped bill.

•The mask on the female is usually lighter than the mask on the male. Cardinals are known for their bright red color but only the male is red. The females is a dull brown or olive color with dull red on her wings and tail.

•Cardinals live in dense shrubby areas such as forest edges, overgrown fields, hedgerows, backyards, marshy thickets, mesquite, re-growing forest, and attractive landscaping.

•Cardinals nest in dense foliage and look for high perches for singing.

•Cardinals are non-migratory

•They gather in big flocks of about 70 birds during winter time and often nest in bushy thickets.

•When the female cardinal sings from the nest, it may be a sign to the male that she is in need of food.

•Each spring you may see a cardinal attacking its reflection in a window, car mirror, or shiny bumper. Both males and females do this, and most often in spring and early summer when they are obsessed with defending their territory against any intruders. Birds may spend hours fighting these intruders without giving up.

•The oldest recorded Northern Cardinal was 15 years 9 months old.

•The Cardinal is the state bird of seven states.

•Its economic importance comes in the fact that it eats insects, pests, such as boll weevils, cutworms, and caterpillars. It disperses seeds and is admired by many as an attractive song bird

•No! You may not kill a cardinal, in fact it is against the law. That law is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which makes it illegal to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill robins, cardinals, and mockingbirds are particularly notorious for it.

•You may not kill a cardinal, in fact it is against the law. That law is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which makes it illegal to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill robins, cardinals, and mockingbirds are particularly notorious for it.

•The Cardinal eating habits consist mainly of weed seeds, grains, and fruits.

•It is a ground feeder and finds food while hopping on the ground through trees or shrubs. It eats beetles, cicadas, grasshoppers, snails, wild fruit and berries, corn, and oats, sunflower seeds, bark of elm trees, and drinks maple sap from holes made by sapsuckers

•The American robin is that of the male’s brightly colored chest. The breast and under-parts are red.

•The body length is from nine to eleven inches, the flight feathers are grayish in color, while the tail feathers are black with a little white spot on each of the outer tail feathers.

•The female bird is marked much like the male, but her shades are much duller.

•This bird breeds throughout most of North America, from Alaska and Canada and south to northern Florida and Mexico.

•Most robins migrate during winter to south of Canada from Florida and the Gulf Coast to central Mexico, as well as along the Pacific Coast.

•The American Robin is the largest bird in the thrush family, measuring ten inches from beak to tail. •Robins are social birds, which seems to be their biggest downfall. Because the robin has always lived close to humans, dwelling in nests built on the sides of houses, drainage areas or in trees beside homes•Robins are adaptable, and can quickly figure out how to find food and shelter in a new area where they've never been before. Many of these behaviors are instinctive, which makes them very adaptable but slow to learn new things

•Robins are friendly birds and very popular in Europe.

•The American Robin is one of the most popular birds in the U.S. Its

•American robins are important as prey items to their predators because there are so many of them. They also act to control some insect populations and to disperse the seeds of the fruits they eat.

•Yes but there will not be very much meat. As it is a wild animal the meat will most likely be tough. You will also have to determine how you will kill it, as robins are small and most guns would completely destroy the bird.

•Robins are considered a song bird, they are protected an almost all, if not all, states. The penalty for shooting a protected species is harsh

•American robins may mob small predators, such as blue jays and snakes. They also produce chirping and chucking sounds as warning calls •American robins are vigilant when feeding, they may feed in loose flocks, so that they can also watch other robins for reactions to predators.

•Small and compact, with a flat head and long, curved beak. Short-winged, often keeping its longish tail either cocked above the line of the body or slightly drooped

•Brown all over with darker shades on the wings and tail. The light colored eyebrow is a feature of many wren species is much fainter in House Wrens.

•The species occur in a wide range of habitats, ranging from dry, sparsely wooded country to open forest, forest edges, and areas with scattered grass and trees.

•Also backyards, farmyards, and city parks are where you may find them. Their habitats are based off the weather/ season.

•Most species are non-migratory, remaining in Central and South America all year round, but the few temperate species typically migrate to warmer climes in winter.

•Wrens are often known to be secretive in their habits. Most wrens do like to live quiet lives and spend their days in the lower levels of dense undergrowth.

•But that characteristic does not include all members of the family. Some species, such as the cactus wrens, are very much the opposite of secretive, they are noisy birds who make their presence known.

•Some wren have a bubbly and energetic attitudes, just like their songs. You could find the House Wren hopping quickly through tangles and low branches in search for food.

•In the spring and summer, wren will frequently pause from what they are doing and deliver cheerful trilling songs.

•Wrens perform an important service by consuming destructive insect pests such as weevils, wood borers, aphids, caterpillars and moths. Spiders are also taken, along with berries

•No! you may not hunt these birds. In 1930, the South Carolina Federated Women's Clubs adopted the Carolina wren as their state bird over the popular Eastern mourning dove. Though not an official state bird at the time, the Carolina wren was generally considered a suitable representative of the State of South Carolina,

•Wrens prefer to feed either on the ground or in low bushes. They are shy about approaching backyard feeders, so they make do almost entirely with insects on plants or in the soil year round.

•Wrens also feed above the ground, snagging insects from plant surfaces. About 90% of their diet is this protein..

•The common nighthawk is a medium sized bird, about 10 inches in length. It has grayish-brown feathers, a long forked tail and long pointed wings with a broad white wing bar.

•The common nighthawk has a large mouth with bristles that help it catch insects. Males have a white throat patch and a white tail bar. Females have light brown or cinnamon colored throat patch and no tail bar

•The common nighthawk can be found in open woodlands, clearings or fields. It can also be found in towns and cities, being well-adapted to urban life

•The male Common Nighthawk has a dramatic booming display used during the breeding season. He flies around at a moderate height, then dives straight toward the ground. Somewhere just about two meters from the ground he turns upward.

•At the bottom of the dive he flexes his wings downward, and the air rushing through his wingtips makes a deep booming sound. The dives are directed at females, young nighthawks, intruders, and even people.

•The nighthawk doesn't build a nest. The female lays from 1-3 eggs on the ground in an open gravely or lightly vegetated area

•The female incubates the eggs for about 19 days. The chicks can move about on their own shortly after birth. They will start to fly when they are around 23 days old.

•They consume a huge number of insects.

•The contents of two nighthawks stomachs were analyzed, one had 500 mosquitoes and the other had over 2,000 flying ants.

• couldn’t find any laws or regulations on the song bird, the nighthawk

•Flies, plant lice, and mosquitoes frequently form an important element of the food of the nighthawk. Nighthawks, especially in the Middle West, have been known to eat a considerable number of grasshoppers and locusts.

•Generally, sparrows tend to be small, plump brown-grey birds with short tails and stubby, powerful beaks.

•The House Sparrow is a chunky bird. typically about 16 cm long, with measurements ranging from 14 to 18 cm. It has a large rounded head, a short tail, and a stout bill In weight, the House Sparrow generally ranges from 24 to 39.5 g. Weight varies by sex, with females usually smaller than males.

•House Sparrows are closely associated with people and their buildings. Look for them in cities, towns, suburbs, and farms (particularly around livestock). You won’t find them in extensive woodlands, forests, or grasslands. In extreme environments such as deserts or the far north, House Sparrows survive only in the immediate vicinity of people.

•The House Sparrow takes frequent dust baths. It throws soil and dust over its body feathers, just as if it were bathing with water. In doing so, a sparrow may make a small depression in the ground, and sometimes defends this spot against other sparrows

•The House Sparrow prefers to nest in manmade structures such as eaves or walls of buildings, street lights, and nest boxes instead of in natural nest sites such as holes in trees.

•House Sparrow has proved to be an excellent model organism for many avian biological studies. To date, there have been almost 5,000 scientific papers published with the House Sparrow as the study species.

•House Sparrows aggressively defend their nest holes. A scientist in 1889 reported cases of House Sparrows attacking 70 different bird species. House Sparrows sometimes evict other birds from nest holes, including Eastern Bluebirds, Purple Martins, and Tree Swallows.

•You may trap and also eat Sparrows, they are quite editable

•They are introduced exotic species that have been wreaking havoc on our ecosystem.

They decline in bluebird and purple martin numbers over the past decades

•There are NO laws about Sparrows

•you can trap and dispose of house sparrows with impunity they are not protected by law

•Sparrows eat mostly grains and seeds, as well as livestock feed and, in cities, discarded food.

•They eat are corn, oats, wheat, ragweed, crabgrass and other grasses, and buckwheat.

•Sparrows readily eat birdseed including millet, milo, and sunflower seeds. Urban birds readily eat commercial bird seed

•In summer, Sparrows eat insects and feed them to their young. They catch insects in the air, by pouncing on them, or by following lawnmowers or visiting lights at dusk.

•The Barn Owl is a pale, long-winged, long-legged owl with a short squarish tail.

•Depending on subspecies, it measures about 9.8–18 inches in overall length, with a wingspan of some 30–43 inches.

•Tail shape is a way of distinguishing the Barn Owl from true owls when seen in flight, as are the wavering motions and the open dangling feathered legs.

•The light face with its heart shape and the black eyes give the flying bird an odd and startling appearance, like a flat mask with oversized oblique black eyeslits, the ridge of feathers above the bill somewhat resembling a nose.

•Found in open habitats, such as grasslands, deserts, marshes, and agricultural fields.

•This is a bird of open country such as grasslands, deserts, marshes, agricultural fields and some interspersed woodland,

•This owl prefers to hunt along the edges of woods.

•The Barn Owl has excellent low-light vision, and can easily find prey at night by sight.

•But its ability to locate prey by sound alone is the best of any animal that has ever been tested.

•It can catch mice in complete darkness in the lab, or hidden by vegetation or snow out in the real world.

•The Barn Owl is one of the few bird species with the female showier than the male.

•The female has a more reddish chest that is more heavily spotted. The spots may signal to a potential mate the quality of the female. Heavily spotted females get fewer parasitic flies and may be more resistant to parasites and diseases.

•The Barn Owl one of nature’s most efficient rodent predators,

•A nesting pair of barn owls may easily destroy more than 1,500 rodents per year, serving as a sustainable form of rodent control.

•NO! you may not eat them. They are on the federal list of protected animals so it is illegal to kill or harm them in any way.

•While it is illegal to take barn owls from the wild, they can be kept in captivity if they are injured wild birds in treatment or they are raised

•The barn owl is on both the Wildlife and Countryside Act

•Therefore the birds, their nests, eggs and young are fully protected at all times

•The Barn Owl's diet is dominated with mice, rats, voles, gophers, and shrews.

•In smaller amounts it will also take a vast array of other food including larger insects, reptiles, fish, and smaller birds.

•Normally the Barn Owl actively hunts and often follows a favorite course or returns to favorite hunting areas

•A male Red-Tailed Hawk may weigh from 1.5 to 2.9 pounds and measure 18 to 22 inches

•A female can weigh between 2 and 4.4 pounds and measure 19 to 26 inches long;

•Wingspan is about 45 to 52 inches.

•As is the case with many raptors the Red-tailed Hawk displays sexual dimorphism in size, as females are up to 25% larger than males.

•The Red-tailed Hawk is one of the most widely distributed hawks in the Americas. •It breeds from central Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories east to southern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and south to Florida, the West Indies, and Central America.•Its preferred habitat is mixed forest and field, with high bluffs or trees that may be used as perch sites. •It occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands, mountains, foothills of mountains coniferous and deciduous woodlands, tropical rainforests, agricultural fields and urban areas.

•Over 250 species are included in the hawk family

•The red-tailed hawk is often harassed by other birds, such as owls, crows, magpies, other hawks and even songbirds.

•In flight, this hawk soars with wings in a slight dihedral, flapping as little as possible to conserve energy.

•Active flight is slow and deliberate, with deep wing beats.

•In wind, it occasionally hovers on beating wings and remains stationary above the ground.

•When soaring or flapping its wings, it typically travels from 20 to 40 mph but when diving may exceed 120 mp

• Hawks tend to eat many rodents including mice, squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons

• all the these rodents are pests to households, reason being why the hawk is so important

•The hawk lowers the number of rodents making it just right and not our of control

•Depending on where you live and the laws you may not harm this bird. You cannot kill a protected species.

•Hawks like to eat rats, mice, and lizards.

•Hawks will also eat birds and insects. Some will eat snakes, frogs and toads.

•Hawks are also known to fish, using their talons to grab the fish from the water

•The color/shades of an adult Bald Eagle is evenly brown with a white head and tail. •The tail is moderately long and slightly wedge-shaped. •Males and females are identical in plumage coloration, but sexual dimorphism is evident in the species in that females are 25 percent larger than males. •The beak, feet, and irises are bright yellow. The legs are feather-free, and the toes are short and powerful with large talons.•The highly developed talon of the hind toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes.

•The Bald Eagle prefers habitats near seacoasts, rivers, large lakes, oceans, and other large bodies of open water with an abundance of fish.•Studies have shown a preference for bodies of water with a circumference greater than 7 miles, and lakes with an area greater than 4 sq miles are optimal for breeding bald eagles.•The Bald Eagle requires old-growth and mature stands of coniferous or hardwood trees for perching, roosting, and nesting. Selected trees must have good visibility, an open structure, and proximity to prey, •Forests used for nesting should have a canopy cover of no more than 60 percent, and no less than 20 percent, and be in close proximity to water.

•It is partially migratory, depending on location. If its territory has access to open water, it remains there year-round, but if the body of water freezes during the winter, making it impossible to obtain food, it migrates to the south or to the coast.•The Bald Eagle selects migration routes which take advantage of thermals, updrafts, and food resources. During migration, it may ascend in a thermal and then glide down, or may ascend in updrafts created by the wind against a cliff or other terrain. •Migration generally takes place during the daytime, when thermals are produced by the sun.

•The Bald Eagle is a powerful flier, and soars on thermal convection currents. It reaches speeds of 35–43 mph when gliding and flapping, and about 30 mph while carrying fish. Its dive speed is between 75–99 mph,

•It seldom dives vertically.

•Eagles help ranchers by controlling the number of rabbits and rodents Animals that compete with livestock for grass.

•Their feathers are used in the ceremonies of some groups of native North Americans.

•No! you can not eat this bird because it is our Nation’s bird

•Since their removal from the Endangered Species Act, bald eagles are primarily protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. •These laws prohibit the take of bald eagles, which includes activities that are likely to interfere with eagles’ breeding, feeding or sheltering behavior, or result in injury, death, or nest abandonment.•The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects bald eagles and their eggs, nests and feathers by prohibiting killing, taking, or possession of eagles •In some states, bald eagles are also protected by state endangered species laws

•Eagles primarily eat fish, carrion, smaller birds and rodents. Eagles are also known to prey on large birds and large fish.•Waterfowl are an important secondary food source, and eagles also eat small mammals such as rabbits, seabirds, and carrion. •When hunting, the Bald Eagle either seeks its prey from a perch or from high in the sky, then swoops down and snatches up the prey in its talons. •Another method used by bald eagles to gain food is theft; Bald Eagles are often seen stealing prey from other birds.

•Great horned owls are big and bulky about 3-4 pounds, standing 18-25" tall with a wingspan of 36-60" long.

•Males and females are similar in appearance, except the female is the larger of the two.

•The colors/shades of the great horned owl varies regionally, from pale to dark. In general, they have brown body plumage covered with darker brown spots and white throat feathers that contrast with the dark cross-barred under-parts.

•The white feathers stand out like a collar against the darker underside feathers. Some great horned owls may be very pale underneath, but still the white collar stands out.

•Found from the Arctic tundra to the tropical rainforest, from the desert to suburban backyards, •They are one of the most widespread species of owls. •They mostly reside year round in their territories, but ones from the far north move southward in fall or winter.

•When owls are awake, they use their hearing and eyesight to alert them of danger or possible prey.

•Great horned owl eyes, which are almost as large as a humans, allows a great amount of light to pass through the pupil, so the owl can see in dark conditions.

•If a great horned owl was as big as a human, its eyes would be the size of oranges!

•The Great Horned Owl is a regular victim of harassment from flocks of American Crows.

•Crows congregate from long distances to mob owls, and may continue yelling at them for hours.

•The enmity of the crows is well earned, however, as the owl is probably the most important predator on adult crows and nestlings

•The great horned owl controls harmful rat and mice populations throughout the United States. They kill domestic cats which in turn would have killed wild birds that humans value. •(negative) The great horned owl is capable of destroying game birds and animals. Poultry is also a favorite of the owls because they are easily captured. The occasional domestic cat can also fall victim to the great horned owl

• Can’t kill/eat owl. It is against the law

•Great horned owls are protected through the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act pf 1918.

•This Act states that it is illegal to harm or kill any raptor species, or to interfere with nests or eggs. It is also illegal to possess any part of a raptor unless permitted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

•Prey is varied. Predominantly small to medium-sized mammals such as hares, rabbits, raccoons, rats, squirrels, mice, moles, voles, marmots, cats, shrews, bats, armadillos, weasels and gerbils.

•It is even a natural predator of porcupines and skunks (it has poor sense of smell).

•Birds also comprise a large portion of a Great Horned Owl's diet, ranging in size from kinglets to Great Blue Herons (water birds, especially coots and ducks, are hunted).

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