Hillbillie Willie and the Dead Bunny

Wednesday September 26 2018

The jackrabbits took a big hit in the unprecedented heavy winter 2 years ago - pretty much the whole population around here wiped out. It's taken almost two years, but they've started to make a comeback. It's not too unusual now to see one on just about every ride, scooting out of the sagebrush or rabbit brush, their big ears swiveling like radar discs.

Most of the horses are not afraid of them, even when they pop out of a bush underfoot.

What *is* scary is a dead jackrabbit in your front yard!

Hillbillie Wille and I had a great ride this awesome fall morning, and I dismounted at the top of the driveway to lead him in. I noticed on the way in what I hadn't seen on the way out (was it actually there?? Or did it appear while we were out riding?): a dead jackrabbit with a hole eaten out of its back/neck. What's odd is that it was laying in the 'yard' by the driveway. Jackrabbits don't normally come out here into the grass-less front yard, and nor would I expect a coyote to snag a rabbit from out in the brush and bring it in here this close to eat. Maybe an owl or hawk was flying with it and dropped it?

Willie didn't see it as we passed it, and I didn't think anything of it, but then I thought to lead him back and show it to him.

Live rabbit: no problem. Dead rabbit: DANGER!!!!!

I led Willie back to the small dead lump of fur, and when he laid eyes on it, he spooked back and stood there big-eyed and trembling. Dead rabbit, omg, dead rabbit, omg, not right, not right, was swirling through his Standardbred brain.

I told him it was OK, it had been a rabbit, but the rabbit died and went to Rabbit Heaven, and now it was just a furry carcass. Not a big deal, we all die and become carcasses at some point. 

Willie wasn't immediately convinced, because all rabbits he knows are hopping around with big floppy ears, and he stood at the end of his reins I was holding, and snorted and kept staring at the rabbit. I finally got him to step up, slowly, and put his head down and sniff the rabbit, but he stayed leaning back on his heels ready to bolt, as he wasn't sure there wasn't still great danger about.

After he stood calmly, we turned around and started back to the house, but Willie was walking slowly, and wanting to look back over his shoulder. He was still thinking about that dead rabbit, still had unfinished business with it. He wanted to go back and check it out again. 

So I led Willie back to the rabbit, and he looked at it a while, then put his head down and slowly walked forward and sniffed the rabbit again and touched it. I told him it was OK. And I could see the cogs turning in his brain, and he decided, If he's really in Rabbit Heaven, and this is just his carcass, I guess that's OK then.

And as we walked on toward the house, two Ravens called from a tree and a post, waiting to snack on the jackrabbit meal conveniently waiting for them.

BEST FIELD TRIP EVER

Sunday May 27 2018

I knew we'd be getting to help band young ferruginous hawks on our field trip (a repeat of the one I did a couple of years ago), but little did I know we'd get to help with juvenile RAVENS also!

It's a local outreach program between the Boise BLM and the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area and Raptor Research Center that gives raptor (and RAVEN) enthusiasts like me a chance to go on a field trip with biologists to assist them in banding birds of prey (and RAVENS!!!).

Our first stop was a platform nest with 5 juvenile ferruginous hawks. As the adults circled in consternation high above (they are generally not aggressive), one by one the babies were plucked from their nest, and handed off to the arms of us eager hawk holders, each bird awaiting their turn to be measured and banded.

These babies, averaging about 30 days of age, are just about as big as they'll get, but their flight feathers have not fully developed, nor the muscling needed to flap those (one day) powerful wings yet. Nor are they aware of the strength of their toes yet nor the razor sharpness of their talons. In your arms, a ferruginous hawk baby will pretty much do exactly what he does when sitting on the nest: just sit there unafraid and seemingly unworried, not trying to escape. Two of them were even set down on the ground under the truck in the shade to await their banding, and they just sat there and waited patiently.

These birds are currently plentiful in the Snake River Birds of Prey Conservation Area, on the flats north of and above the Snake River canyon. Their primary prey is ground squirrels (of which this year there are approximately a billion) and jackrabbits, though they'll also eat insects, lizards and snakes. I told the little one I held that maybe one day he'd be flying above my place in a year or two.

Our plans had been to go to band a second nestful of ferruginous babies, but due to propitious unanticipated circumstances, we instead went to a RAVEN NEST to band 4 juvenile Raven babies!

Oh, my stars. I have held a Raven before, an adult that we crick neighbors rescued from a dog injury, and nursed back to health (and it was probably Hoss, the same crick Raven that Linda raised from a baby when his nest blew down years earlier), but it's still a thrill to hold a RAVEN, any time, anywhere.

This nest of 4 was conveniently ensconced in the crook of a weather station on the flats (not far from another ferruginous platform nest), and these babies were cranky and nervous and LOUD (and so were the parents shrieking at us flying above) and they *did* know how to use their beaks and very healthy vocal cords and their feet, on the ends of which were some rather sharp talons (though not as dangerous as the hawks'). They could flap their big wings just fine, too, and were probably within a week of fledging, and would then have been uncatchable.

The first Raven I held was a bit smaller and settled down well enough while I held him/her in the shade awaiting his banding.

The second Raven I held was handed to me after banding, and he/she was bigger and really perturbed and insulted and cranky and NOISY, and gripped strongly with his claws and wanted to flap away towards his nest. I named him BRUISER, but I held him firmly in the shade and told him, too, that one day maybe he'd be flying over my place and I'd say hi and he'd remember me.

While Ravens eat primarily carrion, they'll really eat just about anything. They'll eat other birds' nestlings and eggs, reptiles, insects, seeds, fruit, garbage. They're great opportunists. They're also  known for collecting shiny pretty things. They're very smart. And I LOVE RAVENS, if that needs telling.

The opportunity to do something like this really makes you think about the birds. They aren't always just a speck in the sky or a sentence in a news report. They lead a precarious life growing up on a nest in the wild, where it truly is survival of the fittest, from weather, predators, humans.

Conservation efforts you support or don't support can effect their future, for the better or the worse. If you've made the effort to go out and see a wild bird up close and *particularly* if you get to hold it in your arms and feel its heart beat, what happens to them might really matter to you. 

And, anyway, it's just a thrill if you love birds. If you've never closely visited or held a wild bird before, I highly recommend it!

Owyhee Feathered Hooligans

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Friends in High Places

Thursday April 9 2015

A short jog up Bates Crick, a pair of Ravens brood on their nest. I'm sure it's the same pair that raised 4-5 young in the same nest last year. Their young turned into rowdy raucous ruckus-raisin' gang-bangin' kestrel teasers.

The adult Ravens don't mind me getting close, particularly the male, and I'm almost certain he's The Raven I saved a couple of years ago (story still coming!). One of them will come strut about the horse pasture out front in the mornings, picking up goodies, and dodging wispy Audrey the Terrorist cat who thinks she can assassinate an adult Raven.


A half mile or so up Pickett Crick, the Great Horned Owl brood has already hatched. This year the owls took over last year's Red-Tailed Hawk nest - much to the angst of the hawks. Owls nest earlier, so they get first choice - in this case a nice protected nest that the red tails were hoping to claim again this year. I can see one owlet on the nest, though they usually lay 2-3 eggs. The adult on the nest is the top photo. This is the owlet - he looks cute-ugly fluffy-fierce at the same time.


Just 50 yards upstream from the owls are the red tails, in the second choice nest. I can only imagine it rankles, losing your home to your enemies. Here you can just see the female's head to the left, and her tail to the right, sitting low on her nest.


Again the kestrels have mixed in with this mob - they're noisy and obnoxious, and certainly don't like their neighbors, particularly when an owl is sitting in their nest tree. But they decided to re-settle in this racially charged neighborhood anyway.

And then there are the golden eagles. The Bates Crick pair hardly made appearances this winter. In the previous 3 years, I'd see them on the ridge above their nest in December and January and February, and occasionally fluffing up their nest before starting to incubate in March or so. They raised young in 2 of the last 4 years. Not this year. Last time anybody saw them was in January. And they don't have another nest in this territory (eagles often have several nests within their territory, and they often switch around every year). They just disappeared.


Then there's Hart Crick. I've hiked around here in previous years, once discovering a bunch of eagle nests on one of the cliff faces. Never seen an eagle on any of them - till this year, when I carelessly startled one. I climbed up to the edge of the cliffs here, counted some 4-5 old eagle nests, and admired the view. About to climb back down, I hiked around one more cliff and popped over the edge - and did a startled double take as the golden eagle below me did a startled double take up at me - and flew off nest where she was brooding an egg.

Damn! I didn't mean to scare her off her nest, and had I known she was down there, I'd have never approached so close. Rookie mistake! I quickly retreated as fast as I could, away from the edge and down the far side of the cliff.

It's awesome to have such cool friends in high places - I just hope the eagles and I are still friends!

Angry Birds

Sunday June 22 2014

The kestrels have claimed holy war against the Ravens.

The 6 baby Ravens up the crick have fledged. They aren't so 'baby' anymore - they're about the size of the adult Ravens, and they sure make a lot more noise. Sounds like there are 16 of them.


The 6 roisterous Raven siblings roam everywhere like an Owyhee gang, commanding the skies, spilling out of the trees, strutting about in the horse pasture eating bugs and horse poo, and all the while yelling and shrieking. Nothing hollers and shrieks like a juvenile Raven, much less 6 of them! Sometimes they'll sit on a hill, not quietly discussing things, but hollering their opinions on life. Once they sat on a hillside, shouting down at us as we rode our horses on the trail below them. We couldn't get in a word edgewise!

The kestrels and the orioles have been hopping spitting diving mad the last month. While feeding the babies, an adult Raven often flew toward the nest with something in its mouth, and several orioles and a kestrel or two would be furiously screeching and chasing it. It wasn't an egg in the Raven's mouth a couple of times I saw it; I wondered if it was a tiny kestrel or oriole chick.

Now that the parents aren't flying back and forth feeding the baby Ravens, the kestrels and orioles attack the roaming juvenile Ravens. In fact I know exactly where the Ravens are, or which direction they are going, by the shrill screaming of the pair of kestrels, who are intent on Raven murder. They'll dive-bomb the Ravens anywhere and everywhere - in the trees,

in the skies,

on the ground,




incessantly, for hours, any time the Ravens are in kestrel land (which happens to be just over a small ridge and up the next crick), in which the Ravens happen to invade and swagger about all the time.

The kestrels are about half the size of the Ravens, but they don't give up. Sometimes their sorties are so fierce and constant, that the Ravens give up and flee across the border back to their own crick territory.

Then they sit in trees and discuss their next strategic rowdy raucous Raven ruckus.

Rambunctious Ravens

Friday June 8 2012

From a mile away, I hear them Raising Cain: rowdy raucous ravens rambunctiously renting the air with their Rawking and hollering.

I cross the sagebrush flats and head directly for the noise echoing off the red cliff wall. Bright whitewash dribbles down from a black hole indicating where the Raven nest was.

These 4 siblings have already fledged, bright black and brashly bold, commanding the red cliffs and lone juniper tree 

and in fact the whole Owyhee world. Perhaps it's not a wise strategy, attracting attention to their young, vulnerable, delectable selves from miles away - but then any predator might well be intimidated by the damage these 4 birds can inflict by sheer brashness and by volume alone.

Irreverently, they yell their emphatic opinions as I approach closer: Intruder! Predator! What the hell is that! Danger! Go away! Dare you to come closer! What the HELL is that!

And when I speak: "Hi Ravens!" - the Ravens shush. We stare at each other in a face-off. They study me, heads tilting and eyes blinking to size me up better, and they begin to whisper amongst themselves, What the hell IS that!, and then pretend to ignore me, picking up sticks and carrying them around, scratching their ears, turning their backs to me (while eyeing me over their shoulders), deliberating my intentions, muttering back and forth under their breaths.

As I climb the hill closer to the Raven Tree, one undaunted bird flies onto a boulder above me and yells Intruder!

"Hi Raven!" I say. He stares imperiously down on me from his safe perch. 

My boulder! 

"Hi pretty Ravens!" 

Our canyon! 

"You Ravens are noisy!" 

Very noisy! 

"And beautiful!" 

Yes! 

"And bold!" 

Yes!

The siblings get vocal again.

Bold!

Beautiful

Our canyon!

Rawk! Shriek! Yell!

Boldest Raven dares to leave his boulder and fly low in a circle over my head, staring down at me, before flying off to another perch.

"Bye Ravens!" I say, as I continue climbing up the hill, away from their Raven Tree, but already they are ignoring me, picking up their Raven conversations where they left off: 

My canyon! My tree! Look at my stick! Get that bug! I'm hungry! Where's mom and dad! My Kingdom! I'm beautiful! I'm bold!

They are rulers of their roost, these beautiful Ravens, ready to take on the world, but hanging around the home castle, just in case Mom and Dad might come back and feed them some more. 

Fat chance of that, with these brazen boisterous youths. Mom and Dad fled the coop to be rid of them!

Six Rowdy Ravens

Wednesday August 17 2011

The juvenile gang showed up a couple of weeks ago out of the blue: six bold, raucous, rowdy young Ravens perching in a dead tree one evening, surveying their new turf.

Where did they come from? Are they all from the same area? Are they from the same nest? Did they happen upon each other and something made them decide to stick together? Did they recognize the intrepid kinship in each other? Did they recognize that the voices and presence of six are much more intimidating than one?

They're like rambunctious teenagers, punk hats sideways on their heads, pants down below their knees - they swagger, they strut about; they shriek, they yell; there's nothing subtle about them - and why should there be? At this age, they know everything and they let the world know they know everything.


Delightfully irreverent, every morning they wake the dead (and the living) before dawn, hollering at the universe to look out because they're coming.

They set off roaming, terrorizing the neighborhood, bullying little birds, eluding enraged kestrals, daringly dodging disturbed dogs. They satisfy their hunger by persecuting worms and bugs, harvesting seeds from grass stalks, plucking at dead things.

They experiment and play - any toy will do. One Raven breaks a tiny stick off a tree;



another hops close to try and take it; another Raven breaks off his own stick and plays with it

till the first Raven drops his

and hops over to try and take the other Raven's stick.

I walk beneath their tree every evening before they fall asleep, tossing out dog food nibbles. Do they eat it in the morning? I don't know, but they watch me. They are imperiously untouchable. One morning they left behind a huge feather for me as a token of their illustrious Ravenness.


They are acrobats in the air

chasing each other,

diving, tumbling, swooping, soaring, landing

and taking off and screaming their encouragement to each other.

On a sudden whim, they all scatter, shooting across the sky, strewing like sun rays; they reconvene as one to a tree to discuss things, shouting opinions, yelling thoughts, rawking discoveries, muttering comments, murmuring secrets, burbling stories, knocking their magnificence.

They scuffle, they argue;



they say sweet things, they cuddle.


They entertain. They delight.

They bring great luck with their presence, these six rowdy Ravens.


*Worth noting: I borrowed part of my title from Evon Zerbetz's marvelous illustrated book Ten Rowdy Ravens. She also illustrated Dog Days, Raven Nights, by John and Colleen Marzluff, which I'm reading now.