Re: Birds, squirrels and cats – oh my! (Letters, Sept. 16)

Judy Whytock, it may not be squirrels and cats killing your chickadees, it may be Cooper’s hawks.

Victoria has 30 (or more) known nests of Cooper’s hawks which kill as many as 18 small birds a day. Their diet is primarily small birds, not small mammals.

We had a pair of Cooper’s hawks nests in our yard this year. The mother was last year’s chick and as a one-year-old, raised three hawks to adulthood. At present we have no little birds in our yard. The hawks are very pretty and have a right to live.

C. Hall

Victoria