Owyhee Feathered Hooligans

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Those Little Flycatchers: Say's Phoebes

Friday June 26 2015

It's a productive year in Owyhee for Say's Phoebes. A pair nested on top of the porch light on the front porch, right by the front door - the busy front door with constant traffic from people, cats and dogs. The birds like protective ceilings for their nest more than they dislike close proximity to people.

The Phoebe babies were spilling out of their nest April 25, and not even the people-busy Tough Sucker endurance ride, nor the evening Teeterville Jam (2 banjos, 2 guitars, 1 fiddle) on the front porch interfered with all 4 babies fledging soon afterwards.

It was such a good year in Owyhee, the Phoebes double-brooded.

June 15, four new ones were piled in the same nest, fuzzy and hot in the heat.


Thursday, June 25, spilling out of their nest, at least 2 of them fledged.  I happened to see the first one fly out of the nest into the nearest tree.


I then saw a second one fledge, onto a deer antler hanging off the lattice of the front porch. Maw and Paw Phoebe hung out with him, kept an eye on him.


I sat still and quiet for an hour, watching, taking pictures. My arms and legs cramped, my hands went to sleep, but it paid off waiting and watching, when Maw or Paw brought him a bug! That's the top photo.

The remaining two babies weren't quite ready to leave the nest, and they kept hoping for one more bug to eat.


This rather drab-colored flycatcher has a distinctive and plaintive "Peeer" call. They eat insects by nabbing them in flight, or by hovering over them and snatching them off the ground. They may winter in the Southwest and as far south as central Mexico, and they migrate north in early spring, nesting as far north as northern Alaska.

The size difference between the parents and offspring isn't that great… except for the Big Mouths on the babies!

Don't they look dejected that no food is forthcoming?

I'm a Raven and Bird of Prey fanatic, but these Say's Phoebes are intriguing, and what a treat, getting to see these little birds from the second brood fledge!

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.

Love Me Some Snowy Owl!

Saturday December 31 2011

Guilty: I love birds. I'm rather rabid about the RAVENS, as many of you know, and I'm close to that state with owls, but I don't know that I'd call myself a 'birder' as I'm not particularly good at identifying species. Most little brown birds to me are lumped into the LBJ category - Little Brown Jobs. I know most about Ravens, and a bit about owls. I'd like to know much more about hawks than I do, and I'm learning more about eagles as I get to follow retired bird biologist Karen S around monitoring golden eagle nests.

Some birders travel around trying to fulfill their Life Bird List. I don't have a Life List, but if I did, today I saw my last bird that would be on that list - a Snowy Owl!!!! And I didn't have to journey to the Tundra to see one; there's a pair of Snowy Owls hanging out in Nampa Idaho, 50 minutes from home! 

This momentous event is the result of a 'Snowy Owl Irruption', where, approximately every 3-5 years, Snowy Owls have left their home range, and have been sighted much further south. This winter so far, they've been seen around the Great Lakes, the West Coast, the East Cost, Seattle (one was sighted on a church roof in Ballard  this week), Pennsylvania, Indiana, etc. 

Often, a shortage of food causes birds to travel outside their home range, but this year a possible reason for the Snowy Owl irruption is an overabundance of lemmings, their main prey. One report says that there were so many lemmings this year in the North that a greater number of juvenile Snowy Owls survived their first year, which didn't leave enough lemmings to go around for all the adults and juveniles. Hence, a number of Snowy Owls have irrupted further south in search of food. The last irruption was in 2007.

Despite these 2 Snowies being rather harassed by zealous birders, and by non-birders (people have been trying to walk right up to them and chasing them away, and kids and dogs have been running around scaring them), they have been in Nampa for around 3 weeks in the same couple of fields. It is important to leave the birds alone, because juveniles are still learning the ropes of hunting (the Nampa male snowy is a juvenile), and by causing them stress and causing them to flee, it uses up precious energy they need for hunting, staying warm, and surviving the winter.

Fortunately today - after being harassed in the morning and driven from their usual field, the two Snowy Owls flew to another nearby muddy field, where they were far enough in the middle of it, that people were discouraged from approaching too close, and they were left alone to semi-snooze in the sun.

This is the juvenile male.  

This is the female. She was sitting on an irrigation bank 200 feet away from the male.

Females are larger than males, and have more barring. Juvenile males have more barring, which disappears as the owl matures; some males can be almost pure white. 

The Snowy Owls are the largest owls in North America. Unlike the Great Horned Owls, Long-eared Owls, and Screech Owls that are common around here, the Snowy Owl is primarily diurnal (active during the day). Their regular habitat is the Arctic Tundra. They primarily nest on the ground and hunt over open fields and grasslands.

A steady stream of people drove up and parked, and walked up to the fence with binoculars and spotting scopes and cameras. There were up to 20 of us at one time. You could see the birds as white spots in the field with the naked eye, but we shared with those who had brought nothing.

Looking through binos and the scopes, people were heard to say, "Oh my God!" (That was me.) "They're so beautiful!" (That was me.) "I want to pet one!" (Well, that was me also.) One woman flew to Nampa from Arizona, just to see these two birds! It was convenient that her daughter lived in Nampa, but the lady truly came just for the birds. She'd been to Alaska earlier this year to see a Snowy Owl, but didn't see any there.

What better way to celebrate the New Year with the sighting of this gorgeous bird! Now I don't even need to start a Life List!

This is the male scratching his head.

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.