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.

Owyhee Bird Brouhahas

Wednesday June 4 2014

Up one crick is a glorious nest of Ravens. They grew from four all-mouth featherless squeakers,

to four almost-grown shrieking juveniles about to leave the nest.


One parent always flies out of the tree whenever she sees me approaching - as if I won't notice the big nest with the four giant no-longer-raven-babies spilling over the sides. The siblings are quiet as I stand there shooting pictures and talking to them; they pretend I can't see them. I'm thrilled I have my secret nest of Ravens nearby!

Up the other crick, great horned owls and red-tailed hawks nested within 20 yards of each other (!). Granted, the cover from the cottonwoods is thick and divine, and the two probably probably have a wary truce, but I find it interesting they chose to nest in the same grove - particularly when you add the kestrels - a small hawk - to the mix, who are nesting between the two big birds of prey. The great horned owls nested earliest; the red-tails were next; then the kestrels. What possessed these little hawks to nest right in the midst of this bad-ass neighborhood is beyond me!

As I studied the hawk baby (which looked rather vulture-like at this stage),

it disturbed the hawk parents, one of which flew over and around me again and again - and was consequently chased again and again by a kestrel. Kestrels are most territorial when they are nesting. They have no problem attacking a large bird of prey to protect their nest or young.














I moved to the next trees to check out the great horned owls. An adult always flushes when I come near; one always stays, and I'm lucky if I can find him in the foliage (the adult is the top picture).

I never saw a nest this spring; but I probably should have figured out that the pair of great horned owls were hanging out together after breeding season because they did breed and produce young.

Here's one baby I spied, which has already fledged. There could be more owl babies; but with all the bird brouhahas I'd already stirred up, I didn't want to disturb anymore.