Grounded

Monday June 20 2011

"kree-kree-Kree-Kree-KREE-KREE-KREE-KREE!" Swoop!


Finneas and I were riding back to our home canyon after marking trail for next weekend's Cheap Thrills ride, when, approaching the trail down off the ridge, we saw an agitated prairie falcon, screeching and diving at something on the ground just out of sight over the ridge. It was making enough of a commotion that Finneas noticed and watched it.

Must be another raptor? Or a coyote? Something eating its young? (Prairie falcons nest on cliffs, not on sagebrush-covered ground, and the nearest cliffs were 3/4 mile away.)

Finneas and I walked to the edge of the rim and stood there looking down and watching. We didn't see anything, but here came the falcon again, "kree-kree-Kree-Kree-KREE-KREE-KREE-KREE!" Swoop! on the sage-covered slope below us.

The falcon's claws grazed a sagebrush - and something flopped up - an owl - a juvenile Great Horned Owl! It disappeared behind the sagebrush again, but I could just see his feathers. Finneas was snorting because he'd seen not a bird but a monster. He was sure we should flee, but I made him stand there with me a while to watch. Was the owl hurt?

The prairie falcon flew to another ridge, still screeching, then shortly he made another round and dive-bombed at the owl. It flapped and jumped again, but stayed put.

We left, so as to not stress it more, but I worried about it. Why was this owl on the ground, far from the nearest tree (about a half mile), and farther still from his likely nest spot (about 3/4 mile at the least), from which he probably fledged over a month ago?

Then I remembered Steph saying two days earlier, she and Judy had seen a hawk yelling at and chasing an owl - on the ground, very near here, but she was pretty sure the owl had flown off the ground and toward the canyon. Was this the same owl? Was he injured? Lost? Abandoned? What's he doing out here on the ground in the daylight again?


Later in the day I went out prepared for an owl rescue, and hiked back to where I'd seen the owl. I first saw the prairie falcon, chasing two Ravens; just a few minutes later, I saw two Ravens chasing an immature golden eagle! But the falcon wasn't harrassing the owl anymore - if it was still there.

I saw no sign of it - until I got within 30 feet - at which point he jumped up in the air. He was in the same spot where Finneas and I had seen him; he flapped his wings 2 or 3 times and came back down on the other side of the sage. There was no visible damage to his wings, no obvious injury that I could see.


He was probably 'grounded.' I'd consulted with my bird biologist friend Karen, who said the parents may have overfed it, and he's just too full to fly. Just his luck a prairie falcon found him because "prairie falcons HATE Great Horned Owls, because GHOs kill prairie falcon fledglings," Karen said.


I took some pictures then moved away, leaving him alone. He was panting from the heat and I didn't want to stress him more by staying too long or getting closer. I worried about him, but I probably didn't need to, because Mother Nature was taking care of him. The desert-colored owl blended perfectly with his surroundings, and unless something like an eagle flies within a few feet of him, or a coyote passes within a few feet of him, they'll never see him. I was just lucky I got to.

Golden Success!

Thursday June 16 2011

It's time for a final check on the golden eagle nests to see if they were Successful.

Golden eaglets fledge (leave the nest) at around 63 days (9 weeks) of age. A golden eagle nest is considered "successful" when the young reach 51 days of age, or about 80% of days to fledging.


Two weeks ago we checked on the Brown's Creek cliff nest. The two young were still on the nest, and now estimated to be 56 days of age - therefore, a successful nest with two young!


At this stage the eaglets may be larger than their parents. They have longer feathers than their parents; the theory being that it will help cushion them for when they crash into things when they actually fledge - and they will crash into things. Additionally, the parents stuff them with as much food as they can, because the young don't know how to hunt yet on their own, and they may get a bit hungry as they try to figure that important part of their lives out.


Today I checked on the Bates Creek tree-nest eaglet. He/she is about 2 weeks behind the Brown's Creek pair, but as of today, the eaglet is approximately 57 days old - therefore, a successful nest!

Ma and Pa Eagle still like to perch on the distant ridge, which gives them an eagle-eye view of their nest, and presumably doesn't draw attention to the nest tree, which 3 adult-sized eagles sitting together would easily do.


After failing while brooding on the nest last year, this year the Bates Creek golden eagle pair are proud parents (if I may so anthropomorphize - WE are proud anyway). Here's hoping they'll return 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.

Owl's Well That Ends Well

Friday May 7 2010

In some cultures, the owl is a harbinger of doom and death.

(They're all so wrong.)

In some cultures the owl symbolized protection and wisdom. Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, made the owl her favored creature.

Next to Ravens, Owls are a very special bird for me. They're beautiful and mysterious, and mostly hard to find - if you do see one, consider yourself lucky. One of my great jobs was doing spotted owl surveys. I've gotten to hold spotted owls when we banded them.

This spring I've been quite lucky to find several owl nests in the area - 2 long-eared owl nests and 2 great horned owl nests.

This is a family of great horned owls down the creek whose progress I've been following. The three babies always looked quite fierce when I checked on them, although they never showed alarm. Mom and dad pretty much totally ignored me.

April 26:


May 3:


May 6, the nest was suddenly empty! Did they fledge already? Those fluffy balls of feathers surely weren't able to fly already! We'd had a terrible wind storm the night before, and I was so afraid they'd blown out of their exposed nest, maybe fallen in the creek right below the tree, and drowned.

May 7:
I hiked to their nest, and this is what I found: all three babies had indeed fledged! (It takes 35 days from hatching to fledging - leaving the nest.) They were all in 2 trees 50 yards up and across the creek. Two were hanging out with mom and dad, and one sat in a tree by himself.






Owl's well that ends well for this owl family.

(Really, there's just nothing cooler than Ravens and Owls.)

Good Eagle Day

Saturday May 30 2009

At the ride this weekend, retired bird biologist and endurance rider Karen S said to me, "Someone told me they saw some golden eagles on a nest near Lisa's down Bates Creek Road. Is that true?"

"Oh, Pshaw!" I said. "Those weren't eagles. That's a red-tailed hawk nest. They raised young last year, but this year I didn't see anything on the nest." Some people who aren't quite the bird fanatic I am tend to confuse eagles with hawks, turkey vultures, or even Ravens.

One guy I once worked with came back from a hike in an aspen forest: "Ohmigod this eagle attacked me! It flew at me screeching and almost took off the top of my head! It was HUGE!" This was a guy who confused a hawk with a turkey vulture, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's unlikely an eagle would exhibit that behavior, or that an eagle would even be flying and maneuvering through a thick aspen forest in the first place. However, a bird screaming and diving at you might wig you out a bit. Especially if you were smoking something. And this is typical behavior of a goshawk who's defending his nest which is often in an aspen or fir forest (a goshawk did this to me a couple of times), dive-bombing a human while screeching, though a goshawk is considerably smaller than an eagle.

(And of course, I'm really no bird expert - I can't tell one LBJ - Little Brown Job - from another, and on the rare occasion, I couldn't tell a Raven from a crow - but don't tell anybody that!)

The next day after Pshawing to Karen about eagles down the creek, I was driving Tracy to the airport and almost had a wreck on Bates Creek road when I saw TWO GOLDEN EAGLES in a tree by that red-tailed hawk nest! Just knock me over with a feather!

They were sitting in a bare tree... only I thought perhaps the nest from last year had fallen over, since one of the trees around there had lost some big limbs, and the leaves are now so thick on the cottonwood trees it's hard to see into them.

I emailed Karen right away, and she emailed back "There's supposed to be a Bald Eagle nest between Bruneau and Grandview - let's go look at both of them." If the Bald Eagle nest was real, it's possible it would be the first one ever recorded in Owyhee County.

Today we met up, and first went to Lisa's. We immediately spotted a red-tailed hawk, and a nest, 50 yards down the creek from Lisa's house - that would mean there was no eagle nest right in the vicinity. However, it was still possible that where I'd seen the eagles further up the creek was far enough away that eagles would be nesting there (if indeed the old red-tail nest was still there).

Lisa took us in her big pickup truck, drove across the creek to near where the nest was supposed to be, and we got out and snooped around. No big birds in sight - but Karen did find a possible golden eagle feather, and we found plenty of whitewash where they, or a hawk, obviously spent some time roosting in that bare tree. There were some big branches that had split off a tree and fallen in the creek - possibly the nest had been on one of those, though impossible to tell for sure.


We were just about to leave, when Karen took one more look up - "Wait - I see a nest!" It was so well hidden in the leaves we'd almost missed it - the birds could've pooped on us we were so close! Karen put her scope on the nest from a couple of different angles - but it wasn't occupied. There were no fresh greens - "decoration" - that eagles and hawks decorate their nest with, though there were some from this year - a lighter brown color than the rest of the nest. There was also a kingbird flying in and out of that big nest to his own nest - which would be mighty brave of a little bird that would be nice lunch for a hawk or eagle.

So, no golden eagles there, (or hawks), but it is a good sign that several people have seen them, and it's possible they started to nest and quit, or they failed. Maybe they'll try next year. There's a TON of jackrabbits around - their main food source. Babies wouldn't go hungry, and the nest is quite well protected, and the road wouldn't bother them as it's far enough away, and with a low volume of traffic.

Next - down the highway past Grandview for bald eagles. The last couple of weeks I've been addicted to a live Bald Eagle Cam of a nest with three babies in Vancouver BC. I've been out with Karen the last couple of summers to see some golden eagle nests and babies around here, by car, on foot, and on horseback, but this would be my first Bald Eagle nest, if indeed it existed. Golden eagles are common in this area, but despite the Snake River full of fish nearby (bald eagles' main source of food) bald eagle nests are not common anywhere within a couple of hours of here.

We turned on a road toward the Snake River, going by specific instructions another biologist had given Karen: "The eagles were quite accommodating in that when the tree grove is viewed from the west, you'll see the bald eagle nest on outside branches of a tree."

We first came across a red-tailed hawk sitting on her nest in a tree right by the road. Karen wasn't sure how close together a bald eagle and red-tailed hawk would nest. We drove on to the west side of a grove of cottonwood trees, and there, nice and accommodating as you please, was an adult bald eagle in a tree. Karen found the nest quite easily (not as easy for me to pick out quickly! She has an eye for them). It was in about the middle of the cottonwood tree, a big nest supported by several branches off the trunk, and well-sheltered by leaf cover till probably later in the afternoons. (One study Karen has done showed that heat is the biggest killer of golden eagle babies, especially the ones in cliff nests.)

We were about 200 yards away, (the hawk nest probably less than that from the eagle nest), and with Karen's scope, we had a great view into the nest - and saw 2 babies. Big and black-feathered, and looked just about ready to fledge any day.


Then an adult flew into the nest; she (or he) had some dark feathers on her head, so she was possibly no older than 5 years old. Then the other adult flew into the nest, while the first one took off towards the Snake River, less than a half mile away.

We watched a while - our real live eagle cam - then headed home.

It was a Good Eagle Day.