Category Archives: Birds of Prey

Seen This Week: A Gull, 4 Merlins, and 60 Feet into Ohio

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park, Water and Shore, Weather & Sky
Ring-billed gull wondering if I brought food to Duck Hollow, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

15 February 2025

Welcome to Day Two of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). I’m staying indoors while it snows and rains so much that …

FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM EST THIS MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible.
— National Weather Service forecast for Pittsburgh PA 15 Feb 2025

Gull: Since most of the rain will fall south of here the Monongahela River will rise again. It was falling last Tuesday when I photographed one of the many ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow. This one seemed to be asking, “Do you have food for me?” Someone had left birdseed on the trash can cover.

4 Merlins: Yesterday I went to the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park half an hour before sunset to see if I could find the two merlins who usually hang out there. As soon as I arrived one flew in and landed on the highest pine in the Palmer Loop Practice Area north of Schenley Drive.

Merlin atop an evergreen, Schenley golf course, 14 Feb 2025, 5:22pm (photo by Kate St. John)
Zoomed cellphone photo: 1 of 4 merlins at Schenley golf course, 14 Feb 2025, 5:15-6:05pm (photo by Kate St. John)

Soon a second merlin landed on top of the tallest tree, a bare tree between holes 8 and 9. I walked a big circle to check for songbirds and saw the first merlin in an intense chase with a third. On my way back to the car I found a fourth(!) and was able to stand in one spot and see all four merlins at the same time.

Four is unusual but I remember a time, perhaps in the late 1990s, when Bill Hintze first found merlins at the golf course. In those days there were sometimes as many as four.

60 Feet into Ohio: On Monday 10 Feb four of us went birding on the Stavich Bike Trail in Lawrence County PA to do a Winter Survey for the Third PA Breeding Bird Atlas. We were ready to head back to the car when I realized we were only a half mile from Ohio. So we kept going, crossed the state line and walked 60 feet into Ohio.

Ta dah! Here we are just inside Pennsylvania. Best Bird: a white-crowned sparrow.

Birding with friends (Donna, Kate, Debbie, Linda) in PA at the Ohio state line, 10 Feb 2025 (photo by Donna Foyle)

Bonus Picture — great horned owlet: Here’s another owlet baby picture from Tues 11 Feb. The white fluff in front of the mother owl is the owlet’s head facing left with its eyes closed.

Great horned owl nest with mother and owlet, Schenley Park, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Owlet!

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park
Great horned owl on nest in Schenley Park, 1 Feb 2025 (digiscoped photo by Kate St. John)

11 February 2025

Remember this great horned owl nesting in Schenley Park? According to eBirder Andy Georgeson, she’s been incubating since at least 8 January.

[Great horned owl] continuing – I have now observed this owl on the old red tail hawk nest for the last 3 weeks. … This morning the owl was mobbed by 2 Ravens and displayed a defensive posture while in the nest before the Ravens flew off.

— eBird Checklist comment from Andy Georgeson, 29 Jan 2025, 7:30am

Last Sunday, 9 February, Dana Nesiti saw movement under her breast feathers and patiently waited until her owlet appeared. Can you see its little gray beak poking out under her white collar?

Great horned owl with chick, Schenley Park, 9 Feb 2025 (photo by Dana Nesiti)

Incubation for great-horned owls (Bubo virginianus) lasts 30-37 days, averaging 33 days. If this owlet hatched on Saturday 8 February, its egg was laid around 6 January. Andy Georgeson’s observation supports this timing, too.

Great horned owlets are in their nestling phase for 42 days. This one will probably walk off the nest (called “branching”) on or around 22 March.

We’re going to have 6 weeks of Superb Owlet(s)!

UPDATE at noon on 11 February: Charity Kheshgi and I visited Schenley Park this morning to see the owls, best viewed in the vicinity of the stone bench here. I was lucky to digiscope a photo of the chick.

Great horned owl with sleeping owlet (center of photo) and stored food (on left side of nest), Schenley Park, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

The owlet is the white fluff closest to his mother in the center of the photo. The other white stuff is the remains of a rabbit on top of the twigs at the left.

If you can’t discern the owlet above, here’s the same photo flipped so that the chick’s sleeping face is in the normal upright position. Ignore everything in this marked up photo except the area inside the yellow circle. Notice that the owlet’s white head, dark eye (closed), and beak are peeking out to the right of the nest twigs.

Marked up photo of owlet in great horned owl’s nest, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

Plucky Crows Harass Bald Eagles

Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey, Crows & Ravens
Crow pulls the tail of an immature bald eagle, Delta, BC, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 February 2025

Bald eagles are top predators who will eat crow nestlings, fledglings and unwary adults if the opportunity arises, so crows learn from a very young age to watch out for eagles.

Even in the nest young crows hear and see their parents drive off hawks and eagles. In their first year of life, which they spend with their parents, they learn the rules of harassment.

  • When a lone crow sees an avian predator he perches prominently and calls for reinforcements.
  • When his buddies arrive the crows work as a mob to drive away the predator.
Crows mobbing a bald eagle in Bremerton, WA (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
American crows harassing a bald eagle in Alaska (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
  • When the situation is acute and the mob is left behind, a solo crow may harass an eagle even though he’s the only one left. Sometimes he does something daring.

Ten years ago photographer Phoo Chan went to the shore at Seabeck, Washington to photograph the bald eagles who arrive in large number during the midshipman fish run (Porichthys sp). He was very lucky to capture photos of a lone crow riding on an eagle’s back. See more in his article below.

The Story Behind the Photo of a Crow Riding an Eagle – Part 2

Crows keep the world safe for crows. 😉

Seen in Past Week: Gulls, Owls and Bonus Birds

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Peregrines, Schenley Park, Water and Shore
Immature herring gull on ice shouts at his friends, Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

3 February 2025

In the past week I’ve been lucky to see gulls on ice, an owl on the nest, and three Bonus Birds.

Tiny icebergs were floating down the Monongahela River when Charity Kheshgi and I visited Duck Hollow on 28 January.

Ring-billed gulls on ice at Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Ring-billed gulls outnumbered every other species. A few immature herring gulls made a ruckus in the middle of the river. And a Bonus Bird: A peregrine falcon flew over. I wonder who it is!

Peregrine falcon flyover, Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

On 1 February I visited Schenley golf course to take a photo of my shadow and decided to drive down Circuit Road on the way home. The sun was so bright that it illuminated the great horned owl’s nest under the Panther Hollow Bridge. From the road I digiscoped a photo of the female and cropped it for a closer look.

Digiscoped photo of nesting great horned owl at Schenley, 1 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Heavily cropped digiscoped photo of nesting great horned owl, 1 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

Yesterday I went back with Charity Kheshgi to see the owls. The captions on her video and photos tell the story.

video of great horned owl on nest, Schenley, 2 Feb 2025, by Charity Kheshgi

We were able to see both the male on the left and the female on the nest from a trail on the same level as the nest (the “Lower Trail”).

Great horned owl pair male roosting (left), female on nest, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Below the bridge we couldn’t see the nest but the male was visible, roosting in the shadows.

Great horned owl male roosting near his mate, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

And later, two Bonus Birds: A golden-crowned kinglet who flashed his crown, yellow and red …

Golden-crowned kinglet, Schenley Park, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

… and a brown creeper

Brown creeper, Schenley Park, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Great Horned Owls Already on Eggs

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park
Great horned owl on nest, Merritt Island, Florida, January 2011 (photo by Chuck Tague)

30 January 2025

Great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) are the first birds to nest in Pennsylvania each year(*). They start courting in late fall and become really intense in December when you often hear them hooting in the woods and suburbs.  By January or February they’ve chosen a nest site and the female lays her eggs.

Since great horned owls never build a nest they often take over an old red-tailed hawk nest and that’s what they did at this bridge in Oakland. Ankur and Wenting saw the pair last Sunday 26 January.

The female owl is the only one who incubates, so she’s on the nest in the photo. Look closely behind and above her and you will see her mate perched on a horizontal girder. He feeds her at night and roosts near her during the day.

According to eBirder Andy Georgeson, this female has been on the nest since around 8 January:

[Great horned owl] continuing – I have now observed this owl on the old red tail hawk nest for the last 3 weeks. … This morning the owl was mobbed by 2 Ravens and displayed a defensive posture while in the nest before the Ravens flew off.

— eBird Checklist comment from Andy Georgeson, 29 Jan 2025, 7:30am

Look at old red-tailed hawk nests near you for some ear tufts sticking up. If you see them, don’t get too close!  You don’t want to tangle with Mama owl!

Great horned owl on nest in March 2020 (photo by Steve Gosser)

p.s. The nest pictured at top is an old osprey nest in Florida, claimed by a great horned owl.

(*)First to nest: Pigeons nest all year long in Pennsylvania. They never have an off season.

Snowy Owl? Or Plastic Bag?

Birds of Prey, Musings & News
Is that a snowy owl? Franklin County, PA 12 Jan 2014 (photo by Nancy Magnusson via Flickr Creative Commons license)

23 January 2025

Those who ventured out in this week’s bitter cold hoped to see birds from the far north who had just arrived on the wind. The typical way to find them is to drive past frozen fields watching for movement and scanning for anything that looks like a bird.

What’s that white lump in the field? Is it a snowy owl? Or a plastic bag?

Eleven years ago the winter of 2013-2014 was extremely cold and there was a huge irruption of snowy owls in the Northeast and Great Lakes. People photographed all of them, even the distant ones, to document them in eBird.

At top: Is that a plastic bag on that patch of snow? Below: Are there plastic bags or snowy owls in this photo? And how many?

Where’s the snowy owl? There are 3 in Jackson County, MI on 26 Dec 2013 (photo by Don Henise via Flickr Creative Commons license)

Is there a snowy owl in this picture?

Where’s the snowy owl in this picture? West Dennis Beach, Cape Cod, 17 Jan 2014 (photo by On The Wander via Flickr Creative Commons license)

Answer: All three photos have a snowy owls in them. The middle photo has 3 along the ridge top.

This winter we have not seen a big influx of snowy owls into Pennsylvania though there have been a couple of sightings.

screenshot of snowy owl sightings in the northeastern US in Jan 2025 (eBird species map as of 23 Jan 2025)

Recently there’s a snowy owl near Grantsville, Maryland which is often photographed from afar. A white lump?

If you’ve ever looked for a snowy owl and found a plastic bag you’ll enjoy the story and photos at The Search for Snowy Owls by Friends of the Fox River in Elgin, Illinois.

Hays Bald Eagle ‘Dad’ is Back!

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship
Adult male bald eagle ‘Dad’ at Hays, 18 Jan 2025 (photo by Dana Nesiti, Eagles of Hays PA)

20 January 2025

From 2013 through 2023 a male bald eagle, nicknamed ‘Dad’ by his fans, nested at Pittsburgh’s Hays site. Here he is adding sticks to the nest in November 2018.

Male bald eagle, ‘Dad’ adds sticks to the Hays nest in Nov 2018 photo by Dana Nesiti, Eagles of Hays PA)

Sadly ‘Dad’ disappeared from his territory in September 2023 and many feared he was dead. A new male, HM2, mated with the original female in 2024 and she laid one egg but the nest failed when the egg deteriorated and collapsed.

Then on a gray and rainy morning, Saturday 18 January, Dana Nesiti (Eagles of Hays PA) was taking photographs at the Hays nest viewing site when an adult eagle came in, perched, and flew. Dana’s in-flight photos show that this bird has ‘Dad’s unique traits: a wing gap and a stubby talon.

It didn’t take long to spread the happy news. ‘Dad’ eagle is back!

With Dad’s return hope is renewed for a successful nesting season even though it’s already late January. As Merry Wander commented on Facebook:

…and Dad only needs 4 days to whip this place into shape…

Woo hoo!

p.s. If you aren’t on Facebook you won’t be able to see Dana’s entire Facebook message. I’ve quoted it below.

“1-18-2025 Got to the trail while it was still dark and was able to see a eagle in the cam tree with binoculars. While I was watching that eagle it flew out at 7:22am and circled the river a couple times before flying downstream. It appeared to be a sub adult. I continued down the trail to the nest area and took my pack off and was going to get set up. Another eagle was flying down the hillside which looked like a sub adult and it had a adult eagle chasing it. They did some maneuvers and also flew downstream. It was still dark and my camera was in my backpack.

“At 9:20am a eagle came over the hill and landed in the slanty tree area and sat for a few minutes. When it flew we were shocked. This eagle appears to be the original Hays male “dad”. I’m 99.999% sure it is. What do you think?

“EDIT: Looking at other images from the flight of the hill, we can see the top wonky feather and his stubby talon. I’m saying 100% the original male!!

“There have not been any signs of nest building that we are aware of and the past week there have been several different sub adult eagles hanging around. Sorry for the bad quality pics as the sky was drab and rainy.“

— quoted from Eagles of Hays PA on Facebook, 18 Jan 2025

Follow Eagles of Hays PA on Facebook for more news of the Hays bald eagles.

Short-Eared Owls Bring Joy to Winter

Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey
Short-eared owl in Lawrence County, Jan 2025 (photo by Steve Gosser)

17 January 2025

When Debbie and I went to Lawrence County last Sunday we knew we would see sandhill cranes but our real target, our Fingers Crossed hope, was to see a short-eared owl (Asio flammeus). Friends had told us about them and we’d seen Steve Gosser‘s stunning photos on Facebook.

We were very lucky. While we were watching the cranes a photographer drove by and told us where to find a female (dark plumage) roosting near the ground. On our way there we saw a paler bird, probably male, perched on playground equipment.

Short-eared owl, female, 14 Dec 2024 (photo by Steve Gosser)

But we weren’t lucky enough to see this!

I also re-learned a valuable lesson: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.“

I wore the wrong boots last Sunday because I forgot how much we would stand in the snow to watch birds. My feet were cold. It made me grumpy. I was not liking winter at that point.

But when I got home I put the bad boots away and pulled out my Sorrels and I’ve been happy ever since. Winter has some big advantages. Steve describes it perfectly.

Follow Steve Gosser on Facebook here. He also has a 2025 calendar featuring his photos.

p.s. The weather next week will be particularly challenging, especially on Monday 20 January when Pittsburgh’s high will be 9°F with a low of -5°F. Bundle up!

Descendants of The Terror Birds

Birds of Prey, Musings & News, Peregrines
Illustration of a Terror Bird, Titanis walleri (image from Wikimedia Commons)

12 January 2025

Today we live among the descendants of the Terror Birds. Who were they? And who are they now?

Terror Birds (Phorusrhacids) were a genus of large, flightless, carnivorous birds that thrived in South America from 43 million to 100,000 years ago. Wikipedia describes them as “among the largest apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era.” 

As you can see from this diagram the largest of them could easily have eaten a human and, because Homo sapiens evolved around 300,000 years ago, we were on Earth before they went extinct. We would have been in danger but we were in Africa, separated by an ocean from these terrifying ancestors of modern birds.

Height comparison of four Terror Birds (illustration from Wikimedia Commons, includes accuracy note)

DNA studies in 2024 refined the phylogenetic supertree of birds placing Terror Birds as ancestors in the clade Australaves, the group that evolved in South America and Australia. Click on the image below to see a larger version of the diagram.

Phylogenetic supertree by Stiller, J., Feng, S., Chowdhury, AA. et al. Complexity of avian evolution revealed by family-level genomes. Nature 629, 851–860 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07323-1

Because the diagram has hundreds of tiny details I’ve hand-drawn the Terror Bird section starting with their nearest living relative, the seriema. Notice who else is descended from the Terror Birds!

Australaves descended from the Terror Birds, drawn by Kate St. John, derived fromphylogenetic supertree by Stiller, J., Feng, S., Chowdhury, AA. et al. Complexity of avian evolution revealed by family-level genomes. Nature 629, 851–860 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07323-1

Let’s take a photographic journey through the tree.

First come the seriemas, who stand alone without other relatives. These South American birds have a lifestyle and appearance similar to the secretarybird of Africa, though they are not related. Here a red-legged seriema (Cariama cristata) kills a snake.

Red-legged seriema with snake (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Then come falcons. Interestingly, everything else is a split from them including …

Peregrine falcon, Stellar, in Youngstown, Ohio, approx 2008 (photo by Chad+Chris Saladin)

… parrots …

Hyacinth macaw (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

… New Zealand wrens, who stand alone without other relatives …

South Island wren, New Zealand (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

… flycatchers …

Olive-sided flycatcher (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

… and all the other songbirds.

Northern cardinal in winter (photo by Steve Gosser)

“Terror Birds” we know today are far less terrifying. 🙂

Rare and Wonderful White Hawk

Bird Anatomy, Birds of Prey
Leucistic red-tailed hawk in Northampton County, PA, 4 Jan 2025 (photo by Brenda Lindsey)

9 January 2025

There were several hours of excitement on New Years Day when a snowy owl showed up at Pymatuning. That same day in Northampton County, PA Steve Magditch thought he too may have found a snowy owl but his camera lens revealed a common bird in uncommon plumage, a leucistic red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).

Brenda Lindsey was excited to capture these photos on 4 January.

Leucistic Red-tailed Hawk! I set out this morning to (maybe) see it. (I can’t believe I found it!) Thank you Steve Magditch and Kathleen Itterly Dimmich for your prior postings of this unique Bird of Prey!

— Brenda Lindsey post on Facebook, 4 January 2025

This white hawk is called leucistic, not albino, because it has normal-colored eyes and at least one normally colored feather. See the red feather(s) in its tail.

Leucistic red-tailed hawk in Northampton County, PA, 4 Jan 2025 (photo by Brenda Lindsey)
Leucistic red-tailed hawk in Northampton County, PA, 4 Jan 2025 (photo by Brenda Lindsey)

Though rare, leucistic red-tailed hawks occur throughout their range in North America with a lot of variation in their plumage. Some are spotted, some are blotchy.

See additional photos of white red-tails and learn about leucism in this vintage article.

Who Is This White Hawk?