Crazy Owl Night

Thursday March 29 2018

When I went out late to feed Dudley his dinner in the moonlight, I was delighted to hear a long-eared owl hooting… but then I stopped short when I realized I was also hearing the call of a saw-whet owl - !!!! 

I've never heard a saw-whet owl anywhere but the forest, when out doing spotted owl surveys in Washington and Oregon. I didn't know saw-whets existed here in SW Idaho in the desert, but yes, says my expert birder friend Karen, they nest in boxes on the NCA (Birds of Prey Nat'l Conservation Area) north of here, around the Snake River.

Not much later, I heard not 1 but three screech owls, a male and 2 of last year's young.

I was so excited that I emailed Connie, who emailed back that at the same time that she thought she'd heard a pair of saw-whets tooting away up the crick. Upon further investigation of owl calls, now she thinks she heard not saw-whets but pygmy owls (!!!!!!!!!!). They aren't even supposed to be in this area, but that's what their calls sounded like.

And, if I'd felt like it, I could have hiked a hundred yards up the crick to see a pair of great horned owls, nesting in an old cottonwood (I likely would't have heard them hooting, since they are nesting, and no longer courting).

Four, maybe 5 owl species within a quarter mile of my doorstep at the same time - what a wild and crazy owl night!

this is the great horned owl nest, and top photo, the male sitting near the nest (only the female incubates the eggs)

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.

Got Baling Twine?

Monday February 4 2013

Baling twine (known as binder twine back in the day) was developed as a replacement for wire for tying bundles of reaped grain together in the late 1870's. A manilla fiber was used early on; in the 1930's sisal was the primary twine. That was eventually replaced by hemp fiber, then paper twine. In the 1960's, polypropylene twine was developed.

The quality of the polypropylene twine improved in 1977 and eventually became the rage it is now. It's simply good stuff for baling hay, and just about any other thing you might need in a pinch. Which is a good thing, since any farm or ranch that feeds hay will have an overabundance of baling twine. The stuff piles up, reproduces, and grows, no matter your best intentions of cleaning it up.

Which is a good thing. It's the best thing since sliced bread. I never ride without a knife and baling twine in my saddlebags.

You can hold most anything together with baling twine, like a falling-down tree, broken tack, or fencing.


You can tie a quick bowline,


make a loop,


slip it over a horse's neck (as Stormy happily demonstrates here),


take a twist and slip it over the nose,


and you've got a quick halter


with which to lead a horse.


As fashionable accoutrements it can be used as a pony tail band, or suspenders, or, if you can't find, say, your Tevis buckle and belt, you can use it for a belt that any hip designer would envy. (Remember Elly May Clampett? An early fashion Maven!)


If you were Batman or Robin, you could use it to climb up the side of a building.

It can be used as a saw to break open baling-twined bales of hay (took me 10 years on the racetrack to learn this one!) just as easy as a knife. It's often used as a fireplace fire-starter.

Even birds get in on the act, and use it in nests - check out osprey nests, or oriole nests in your cottonwood trees.


The Kyneton Agricultural Show in Australia has an Ag Art Exhibition and Competition featuring Farm Art and Baling Twine as Art.

I think they're on the right track. I turned some of our twine into a woven rug that's guaranteed to scrape the mud off my boots and last forever.


















I am belatedly adding a P.S. to this story, which my bird biologist friend Karen pointed out: while Ospreys seem to like decorating their nests with baling twine, it can be deadly for them, when they get entangled in it.

I got hooked on a live bald eagle cam one year and we all watched in horror as one of the 3 babies ('Tiny', the youngest one who got picked on) got his feet hopelessly entangled in orange baling twine in the nest. Unbelievably, we all watched as his mean older sibling untangled and removed the string from his feet, and he survived. 

Good Housekeeping

Friday December 21 2012

It's always a thrill to see the pair of Bates Creek Golden Eagles, and never more so than when they're on their nest early on, fixing up the house, tidying things up to get ready for a new nesting season.  

This pair successfully raised one young on this nest in 2011, and one young on this nest in 2012. Often eagles will have several nests in their territory, and switch to a different nest each year. This pair of eagles has only this one, but it's big and sturdy and solid in a cottonwood tree - a good house to come back to year after year.

Last year the pair occasionally visited and worked on and kept an eye on their nest throughout December, January, and February, before the female started sitting, and laid her first egg on March 7 or 8.

That the eagles are here so early is a good sign there might be a new golden eagle or two in the neighborhood in 4 months.

Another Dang Bird Story

Tuesday May 11 2010

I saw, two or three times, a bird flee from under my truck's tires where I park it in the grass. I'd clear away the start of the nest in the grass - straw, sticks - but the bird would fly out again next time I was there. (It shot out of there so fast I never got a good look at it.) Even though I don't use the truck much, I finally decided to move it so the bird wouldn't build a nest underneath. Had enough trouble with those starlings in the barbecue, you know.

Yesterday I spent the day in town (an hour drive each way), and parked my truck in a different spot back home overnight.

Today I took my truck to the neighbor's to have help changing the oil.

Rick opened the hood: "Oh my God!"


Five eggs in a robin nest!




Dang bird.

The nest looked untouched, after driving 150 miles around Idaho, like it was still waiting for mom to return.

But now, at least 24 hours without incubation, the robin eggs were just that - blue eggs.


Sorry Robin! Next time I'll think to check under the hood during nesting season! Maybe it's not too late for these robins to build another nest and lay a new set of eggs. I hope so, anyway.

Robin egg omelette, anyone?