Nestlessness

Wednesday May 15 2013

It's been a dismal year for local Ravens and raptors in the reproduction department.

This hawk nest sitting atop a Snake River Birds of Prey 'badlands' hill is typical of our area this year. It's a fine nest (though one wonders how a hawk can defend such a nest against, say, a coyote) with a fine view - fine scenery and a fine sweeping view of prey: there ain't any.


Four great horned owl territories and 2 red-tailed hawk territories on our 2 creek are empty this year - the birds didn't even try. (The great horned owls choose their nests first, the red-tails have second choice, and the Ravens get to choose last from what's left.)

Fortunately the golden eagles down the creek successfully hatched at least one young, the top of whose fuzzy white head I saw a few days ago.

My theory is there are plenty of jackrabbits around - the main prey of golden eagles, but our cold winter with the week-long -8°F nights and months below freezing froze the little varmints - mice and voles - that nest in burrows just under the ground and that the hawks and owls normally eat. Then again, it's already been so dry, and nothing is growing, that maybe the varmints had nothing to eat themselves.

Two pairs of Ravens tried nesting this year. Both failed. Under the nest up one creek I found the remains of a Raven shell.



The nest up the other creek - on which a Raven was hunkered down quietly just last week - is empty now. There should be enough Raven food around - Ravens eat just about anything - so why they failed in nesting also, other than egg predation, is a mystery.

N(ow)IMBY!

Monday May 16 2011

I can't believe I missed a Raven nest - practically in my back yard!

Just up Pickett Creek, barely 100 yards from the house, we saw a pair of Ravens flapping around a tree across the creek while riding by today. Connie said, "I bet they are on a nest!"

- A nest! Right there! In the fork of a cottonwood tree. With at least one youngster on it. Before the leaves busted out on the trees, it would have been easy enough to see, especially with Ravens flying in and out of it. I've walked and ridden past there enough I should have seen it. I am appalled!


I occasionally see 'Hoss' (with the unusually low voice) and his wife (with the unusually high voice) around here, sitting in the tree tops, flying around overhead, but I thought they were just hanging out this year, since I'm pretty sure it was that pair who lost their two babies last year (though it is almost impossible to tell Ravens apart).


I'd checked up Bates Creek on the old nest (that red tails are in this year), and looked further up Pickett Creek where red tails nested last year, and I even noticed several magpie nests this year along the creek, that I haven't seen in the 4 years I've been here - but I missed the Raven nest.


I really don't know what to say.

Feathered Friends

Wednesday May 11 2011

The Great Horned Owl pair that raised three young last year moved downstream one nest (taking over a red tailed hawk nest - and the red tail is in their old nest), raised two young this year. The Great Horned Owl gets first choice - they begin nesting earliest. The owls are on just about exactly the same schedule as last year: these photos were taken May 1, an evening after I'd seen them lumbering around the edge of their nest, flapping their gangly wings, getting ready for their first launch. A couple of days later, they were gone.


The Great Horned Owls up the creek did not nest. I could not find a Long-Eared Owl nest (last year there were two).

The Raven cliff nest up the canyon that produced 2 or 3 young last year is empty this year. The Raven tree nest up the crick whose two babies died is occupied by red tailed hawks this year. The Ravens nest earlier; they apparently chose not to nest this year.

And the best for last: the golden eagles in the tree nest down the crick - after sitting on an egg(s) then abandoning the nest last year - have successfully fledged a chick this year! The mother (or father - they switch off) - sat for weeks low down in the nest; a couple of weeks ago we saw mom (or dad) sitting on the edge of the nest, but we could never see anything in the nest - until today, when I spied a white fluffy eaglet sitting up begging from an adult!


I'd parked as far as I could from the nest while still being able to see it with my binoculars. Mama ignored her baby and eyed me the entire time I sat there, so I didn't linger too long. The eaglet showed himself just in time, as spring has suddenly hit with full force, busting out the leaves on all the trees almost overnight. Soon the nest and everything in it will be invisible behind a curtain of green.


We're looking forward to seeing 3 golden eagles flying along the crick soon!

The Raven Tree

Tuesday November 9 2010

Beckoning in all its bright fall glory, I had to hike down to The Raven Tree on Bates Creek.

A pair of Ravens had started to set up housekeeping in the cottonwood tree's nest this spring. I had watched them over the course of a few weeks, then one day saw them no more around the tree (This was not the pair who lost both their fledged young.)


Why did this pair stop nesting? Was it the presence of their next door neighbors a quarter mile away, a pair of golden eagles? (who also started nesting, sat on their nest a while, then failed.) Ravens might make a nice snack for golden eagles, although Ravens are known to brashly harass eagles.


I climbed partway up the tree closer to the nest - and saw why they probably quit. The nest was falling apart, sagging between the fork in the foundation branches. Maybe it was too much of a Fixer-Upper.


As soon as I started climbed in the tree, I attracted two Ravens. They were obviously aggravated at me climbing in their tree, near their nest. It's nowhere near nesting season, and they haven't been hanging out in the tree, but it's clear this pair still considers this THEIR Raven Tree. They circled above me and the tree, RAWKing, intentionally making the Whoosh-Whoosh sound with their wings, circled again, then flew off still yelling.


I was a tree-climbing fool in my younger years, but didn't have the nerve anymore to climb all the way up and look into this nest (though there would be nothing in it now anyway).


It is a comfortable and secure Raven Tree - and the fact that the Ravens are still in the vicinity and still consider this Their Own Tree makes me think that with a little luck and a little bit of remodeling, maybe they'll try again next year.

A Raven Tale

Monday June 21 2010

I hike up Pickett Creek canyon to the Narrows, to check on a Raven nest in a little cave in the cliff walls.


I climb up on the opposite cliffs and look directly across at the nest. It is empty. The young have fledged, and ten yards to the side and a little higher, two young Ravens are hopping about on miniature boulders, slightly worried about me because Ma and Pa Raven are squawking up a storm, educating their young about humans.


The two youngsters, smaller than the parents and with still-partially white beaks, hop back and forth between the rocks, watching me. One Raven disappears. The other youngster walks, and hops, and watches me, undecided what to do, while the warnings of Ma and Pa still echo loudly off the canyon walls.


Next I check the Raven nest up Bates Creek. Where there should be noise, there is an eerie silence. The nest is empty, but the young should still be around - somewhere.

And they are. Or one is, at least.

I first see a pile of Raven feathers in the grass below the nest tree. Pin feathers with thick shaft coverings and a raw piece of meat, possibly part of a wing.


And then my eyes fall on a black lump in the grass - a dead young Raven. No obvious wounds, but laying by the pile of feathers of what was probably his sibling, one foot still grasped around a little tree branch.


Did a hawk get one and the other fell out of the tree trying to defend him? He would have been able to fly. Why didn't he fly away? Why was he not touched by a predator? Where were the parents? I touched the beautiful little black raven body, soft and shiny, and whispered good journey to him.

That afternoon the parent Ravens were near the house. I know them by their voices - the female's is unusually high and the male's is unusually low. He was in a tree above the barn, croaking a low lament:

WRONNNGGG. WRONNNGGG. WRONNNGGG.

Red Canyon of the Hart

Sunday June 6 2010

I used to hike a lot. Long hikes. Hard hikes. Peaks. Cross country. Forests and mountains. Now it's only on occasion. Last few hikes I did, I stumbled about gracelessly, the ground feeling foreign. My feet were out of practice, my body uncoordinated. I must get my hiking legs back underneath me.


Today I head cross country in the Owyhee desert to the Deep Red Canyon of the Hart. The skies are dark, blue-gray and heavy; the rain is moving down from the Owyhees. It begins to fall on the desert, on me, first a soft mist. Then I hear the sound of drumbeats all around me. Then I feel the drumbeats. The earth turns dark, glistening; the flowers emanate intense hues - the Indian paintbrush, purple sage, wild onion, buckwheat, penstemmon, globemallow, lupine. The earth gets wet. My skin gets wet. The flowers reach skyward and drip raindrops. I turn my head skyward and rain drips from my face.

Today my feet are feeling the earth, molding to the uneven ground, moving over it without tripping, without slipping on the wet rocks. I smell the wet desert, the sweet sage and flowers of the shadscale. I absorb the rain like the desert.

Today it's just me an a lone pronghorn on a ridge in the distance. We study each other. I have binoculars. He has the speed with which to disappear. It takes me half an hour to reach where he was.

Before I see the cliffs of the Deep Red Canyon, I hear the roaring waterfalls on Hart Creek far below. The cliffs are red and gray in the rain. Tall. I can't see the bottom of the canyon. Slippery. I don't get too close to the edge today. They rise abruptly from the wide valley floor to become a deep chasm.


Two empty eagle nests perch on the face of the cliffs. Pigeons fly about in confusion at this rare human intrusion. Canyon wrens sing their melodic downward spiraling tune.

I follow the rim of the canyon. It is magnificent, this hidden canyon in the Owyhee desert, the rhyolite rock carved and sliced over eons by water running down from the Owyhee mountains. A lone juniper stands guard over the canyon walls. I stand beside it, dumbfounded by its perpetual view.


My feet find and follow a game trail down into the canyon. I startle a prairie falcon. It flies away, perturbed, screeching at me. A lush ecosystem crowds this narrow canyon. Fat cottonwood trees squeeze alongside the creek. They are thick with luxuriant leaves. Willows choke the ground. Bouquets of rice grass reach my waist.


I climb back up to the canyon rim and follow it until the high cliffs meld into the soft hills that cover the Owyhee desert, and hide these marvelous canyons.

The flamboyant wildflowers line my return path with a royal carpet. Three baby ravens screech and squawk until I climb a hill to see them. They sit silently and study me then discuss among themselves my place in their desert.


I have my hiking legs back under me today. I think the Ravens approve.

Git R Done!

Sunday April 11 2010

I'm on the road, first to the Git R Done endurance ride in Inyokern ("the Sunshine Capital of America"), California. It was an AERC/FEI ride, distances of 35, 55, 75, and 100 miles - many riders have the goal of qualifying their horses for the chance of being one of the 5 rider/horse teams on the World Endurance Championship in Kentucky in September.

That's Jeremy Reynolds and Sir Smith up top - they won the 100 in 8 hours 6 minutes. Smitty looked fantastic all day long, sure didn't look like he'd done a hundred miles when he crossed the finish line with the sun still above the Sierra foothills.


Jeanine and her horse Gallentry's Quest, on his first 50. The spring flowers are busting out all over the desert.


My Belgian friend Leonard flew in to ride one of Christoph Schork's horses, TC Mounshine, on the 100, to try to qualify for the WEG. He enjoyed the horse and the ride... but they got pulled after the 5th loop.


Leo didn't have a crew, so he had to schlep his gear around by himself in the vet checks. Something he was not used to! (but he found it humor-ful).


Canadian Gail Jewell on A Salisbury Rose in the 75. Rose was doing fine, but when Gail got on to go out on the 4th loop, she got dizzy (she'd had a fall 2 weeks prior). So she opted to pull. Her husband Leroy Karius finished 6th in the 75.


Jeremy Reynolds' twin brother Tim finished second and got Best Condition on Ssamiam in the 75. The only way most of us can tell Tim and Jeremy apart is by the horses they are riding. It was easy this ride - Jeremy rode a chestnut, and Tim rode a gray!


Joyce Sousa and LV Integrity were pulled on the 100 for lameness. Here she is crewing for her daughter Jennifer Neihaus's horse MC Gallantly. He ended up being pulled too, for dehydration. Both horses were fine the next day.


The winning 100 team - Jeremy & Heather Reynolds, and Sir Smith, at the finish line.


Check it out - a Raven nest! (with babies) in the barn where we had the ride meetings and dinners. The Ravens ignored us and went about their business while we went about ours.