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!

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.

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.

Intruder!

Wednesday June 9 2010

Intruder! the coyote operatically yipped as I walked down the wash. Yip yip, bark, bark, squeal-yip, bark bark bark. She stood on a ridge, framed dramatically by storm clouds, following my progress, Intruder! Go away! She yipped and barked, haranguing until I was out of sight at the mouth of the red cliff canyon.


I wanted to go in the canyon but the way was blocked by thick and dark (and, frankly, scary) willow thickets. Far down in the bottom of the creek they shielded a pool or swamp or bog that I didn't want to test. If I did get past the willow thickets there was a forest of poison oak. Go away! they warned.

I had no choice but to climb onto the cliffs above the canyon mouth. Instantly a prairie falcon took up the tirade. Intruder! she screeched, as I climbed upward. She had a nest in a cavelet with three young on the opposite side of the cliffs. There was no way I could get near her nest, but that didn't matter. She circled above me, dove at me, screeched continuously. Go away! This is not your canyon!

To give her peace, and to get down into this spectacular canyon, I had to look for a way down. It didn't appease the falcon. Go away! Faster!


And as soon as I had crawled down into the wash, a red tailed hawk up the canyon picked up the attack. Intruder! Intruder in the canyon!

I walked back down-canyon, stunned to muteness by the spectacular gorge. Red cliffs soared above me, pocked with little canyons and gulleys and smooth stones carved by once-upon-a-time water.

I tried to stay inconspicuous as I walked down the wash - but I could not be. I could not walk like a deer, because I was a clumsy human. There were no deer tracks anyway, no coyote tracks, no cougar tracks - nothing in this quiet canyon wash.


As I got closer to the mouth of the canyon, the prairie falcon started screeching again though I was even less of a threat far down below. I startled and disturbed a family of canyon wrens. Instead of their lovely spiraling call, they tittered and tweeted warning calls. Intruder! Go away! Some of them fluttered away; some of them peeked over the edge of boulders at me, their tails popping up in the air, turning one eyeball my way to study me better. The sea of poison oak stopped me from exiting the canyon.


I turned and walked back up the canyon wash, re-disturbing the prairie falcon and canyon wrens and a dove. I found an old great horned owl feather. I put it back on the ground where it was.


Now two red tailed hawks took up the intruder chorus, circling above me, watching my every ungainly move in the stately canyon. The high walls twisted and squeezed together. I had to climb to follow the canyon, up what must be a spectacular step waterfall in a flash flood.


The canyon walls eased back to allow the wash to widen into a sand highway, and then the walls rose and squeezed together again into a tall, narrow funnel - and the way was barred by a wall of tumbleweeds 5 feet high. The way is shut! Go away!


And so I climbed again, above the walls to the upstream entrance of Intruder Canyon, and came to a long wide mound lined by rocks - rocks fetched and carried by human hand and placed along this long mound above the narrow deep canyon walls, with a view to the storm covered Owyhees.


There are rumors of this canyon being an old Indian burial ground. Years ago too many people were coming and helping themselves to the artifacts, so the BLM came and buried everything. Maybe this was leftovers of the rumor.

Maybe this is why the coyote, the willows and the poison oak, the prairie falcon, the tumbleweeds, and the still-screeching red tails above my head, screamed in harmony, Go away!

Perhaps they are guarding the dead. Perhaps they are the dead, watching their sacred ground.

I bowed to the earth, the sky, the animals, the people that are now part of the earth, and I departed.

Birdiful!

Wednesday March 24 2010

Birdwise, it's been a stunning couple of days!

If you work your way up Bates Creek Road and study the leafless (for now) cottonwood and locust trees on the creek (and you know where to look), you will first see a great horned owl on a nest.


Next, 3/4 mile upstream: remember the golden eagle nest on Bates Creek? I hadn't seen the eagles in two weeks. Nothing near the nest, no eagles on their favorite pointed peak on the rim, no eagles anywhere. I thought they were gone. Monday something made me look at the nest again, and look closer - there was a bird sitting in the nest! I couldn't quite tell what it was through my binoculars, but blowing up the pictures - looks like a golden eagle! (Tuesday, I saw two eagles flying, and nothing on the nest. There was a tractor plowing the field right below the nest...)

A half-mile upstream from the eagle nest is another nest; Monday two Ravens were on it. Tuesday two magpies were on it.

Another quarter mile upstream: occupied red-tailed hawk nest.


Another half mile upstream: occupied great horned owl nest.




1 1/2 miles further upstream, occupied red tailed hawk nest.


All of this in a 3 1/2-mile stretch.

Any riparian canyon you come across in this desert country, especially one thick with cottonwoods, you're likely to find something in a nest.

On Rabbit Creek (on the way to Stormy's dental appointment): 2 immature golden eagles were flying above the creek; a red tailed hawk stood on a nest, and a quarter-mile up from there, in a deep wash where we once flushed a half-dozen long eared owls, I found one on a nest.



I'm astounded by all the nesting birds on our creek. Last year I noticed only 2 occupied nests (red tails). Did I just not notice the others? Was I too busy, gone, or just oblivious? Shame.

This year I know exactly where they all are. I still have at least 2 possible golden eagle territories to check out. I suspect I will find nesting long-eared owls and Ravens up Bates Creek from the house; and possibly nesting red tailed hawks a half mile up Pickett Creek from the house, and nesting long-eared owls further up in the Narrows. If I really do some sleuthing, I'm sure I can find a screech owl nest or two (they prefer tree cavities in snags), because I hear them at night on the creek.

But I'm waiting till I can ditch the noisy boisterous dogs before I snoop. No chance on sneaking up on birds with 4 dogs thrashing through brush, and I don't want to overly stress the birds at a critical time on their nests.

It's going to be a bountiful, birdiful spring and summer!