Les Leighton had his camera set up at Canada’s Vancouver harbor when a drama played out in front of him. A gull zipped by with both a bald eagle and peregrine falcon pursuing it in flight. What was it about that gull that attracted two predators at the same time?
Watch the chase and notice the difference between the eagle’s and peregrine’s hunting techniques. Why did both of them give up?
Six of us braved the drizzle yesterday morning at Duck Hollow and were rewarded with an exciting visit from one of the Hays bald eagles. Connie Gallagher captured part of the action in photos.
Five of 6 participants at the Duck Hollow outing, 20 March 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
It all began with two herring gulls on the mud spit, manipulating a large fish.
Two herring gulls with a big fish, 20 March 2022, 8:45am (photo by Connie Gallagher)
The gulls hadn’t made much progress opening the fish when they saw the male Hays bald eagle flying upriver toward Duck Hollow. All the waterbirds could tell the eagle wanted that fish. The ducks stayed put, the gulls quickly stashed the fish and flew up calling and complaining.
The eagle made three dropped-talon passes at the fish but it was too hard to grab in flight. Meanwhile the gulls divebombed him and chased him every time. That fish was stashed so tightly that the eagle would have to land to get it. But the gulls were relentlessly annoying.
Finally the eagle left and the gulls resumed their meal, watched by a crow.
Herring gulls resume their meal, 20 March 2022, 10am (photo by Connie Gallagher)
It’s “Pip Watch Week” at the Hays bald eagle nest. Hatching of the first egg is expected any day now.
Bald eagle eggs hatch, on average, after 35 days of incubation. At the Hays nest this pair has hatched 15 eggs over the past nine years, averaging just over 36 days per egg. Their first egg of the season, laid on 11 Feb 2022, is due to hatch soon. 35 days is today (18 March), 36 days is tomorrow (19 March).
Our hint that it’s close to hatch time will be a hole in the shell — a pip — hammered by the chick who’s preparing to hatch. After pipping the egg it takes an eaglet as much as a day to break out of his shell. Read the step-by-step hatching process here.
p.s. Five miles away, the USS Irvin bald eagles have two eggs. The first was laid on 27 Feb so Pip Watch will start there at the beginning of April. Click on this link to watch the USS Irvin bald eaglecam. Approximate first hatch date there is 2/27/2022 + 35 days = 4/4/2022.
Immature red-tailed hawk focused on prey (photo by Chuck Tague)
10 March 2022
Despite distractions we humans can focus on just one thing if we want to. Birds of prey can do it, too, as seen in this video of a red-tailed hawk in Tompkins Square Park, New York. The hawk doesn’t care about squirrels or people or the ambulance but when he sees a rat …!
This ability to focus is called selective attention and was proven eight years ago in chickens. See this vintage article, Selective Attention in Chickens, with an amazing video to test your own selective attention.
Bonus test: After you see the video in the chicken article, try another test. (This test + answer lasts 3 minutes. The remaining 2 minutes show family & friends reactions.)
(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original. Videos embedded from YouTube)
Red-tailed hawk soaring, 2013 (photo by Cris Hamilton)
3 March 2022
In March red-tailed hawks conspicuously soar over western Pennsylvania. They take to the skies alone or in pairs to soar and dive and dangle talons. Sometimes they even scream.
What is all this soaring about? It’s a multi-purpose signal.
Soaring is part of hunting and migration of course, but in the spring it’s a way to claim territory, advertise availability to potential mates, and cement the pair bond.
What better way to tell other red-tailed hawks that a territory is already taken than by soaring above it? Adults do this alone and in pairs. Unwelcome red-tails are escorted away. “This is mine!”
A lone red-tail also soars to advertise for a mate saying, “This is mine and I need a mate to share it.” (I have no idea how they signal the difference between ‘stay away’ and ‘come here.’)
Before the female lays eggs pairs of red-tailed hawks soar to cement their pair bond.
Prenesting displays typically consist of both birds soaring in wide circles at high altitudes and the male performing maneuvers similar to the Sky-dance [in which the] bird dives steeply from high altitude, checks descent and shoots immediately upward at similarly steep angle.
After several series of dives and ascents, the male slowly approaches the female from above, extends his legs and touches or grasps her momentarily. Frequently, both birds dangle their legs during aerial maneuvers. The birds may grasp one another’s beak or interlock talons and spiral toward the ground. Piercing screams and quiet, raspy calls often accompany courtship flight displays.
In more than a decade of choosing an annual ABA Bird of the Year, this year’s choice, the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia), has the most personality. It’s hard to look at one posing near it’s burrow without seeing its defiant and endearing stance.
The owls, of course, take themselves seriously, choosing a mate, finding an appropriate prairie dog, ground squirrel or man-made burrow to nest in, and raising a family.
The owls have had recent success in Imperial County, California where many of these photos were taken. Unfortunately by 2019 their population in nearby San Diego County was down to 75 pairs due to habitat loss and destruction of the ground squirrels whose holes the birds rely on.
In 2020 researchers began to turn that around by releasing eight young owls at Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve. In the winter of 2020-2021, 24 pairs were reintroduced to man-made burrows at Ramona Grasslands Preserve. This winter they plan to reintroduce several more. The hope is that the young birds raised at Ramona will return to their birthplace to nest.
The female bald eagle at Hays in the City of Pittsburgh, laid her first egg of the season half an hour after sunset on Friday, 11 February 2022 at 6:22pm. As soon as the egg was dry she began incubation.
Her mate roosted nearby and waited for dawn to see the egg and trade places with her. It takes 35 days of continuous incubation before the egg will be ready to hatch.
The Hays female usually lays several eggs, each one 2-3 days apart.
Some raptors draw attention if you know where to look.
This winter a snowy owl has been hanging out at Union Station in Washington, DC often perching on the Ceres statue (above) in Louis Saint-Gaudens’ Progress of Railroading series. (Ceres is indicated by arrow below.)
Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, a peregrine falcon drew attention in late January at Duck Hollow when it harassed a bald eagle on 29 January, captured by Joe Fedor.
Peregrine falcon chasing bald eagle at Duck Hollow, 29 Jan 2022 (photo by Joe Fedor)Peregrine falcon (top) chasing bald eagle at Duck Hollow, 29 Jan 2022 (photo by Joe Fedor)
And harassed the gulls on 30 January, captured by Stephen Bucklin.
Peregrine falcon harassing ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow, 30 Jan 2022 (photo by Stephen Bucklin)Peregrine falcon harassing ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow, 30 Jan 2022 (photo by Stephen Bucklin)
In both cases we can tell it’s a peregrine because of its sickle shape and pointed wings. In the gull photos it has the same wingspan as the ring-billed gulls.
It’s nice to have photos of the birds that draw attention.
Sunset at Schenley Park golf course, 25 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
29 January 2022
When the clouds broke up Tuesday afternoon I walked to Schenley Park for a beautiful sunset with a plan to look at the tops of the things.
If I’m lucky, in winter I find as many as three merlins perched at the tops of bare trees half an hour before sunset.
The merlins don’t watch the sky. Instead they focus on potential prey, the small birds that roost in the conifers and bushes between Holes 1, 17 and 18.
On Tuesday I found two merlins: one on a dead snag, the other in the top branches of the tallest tree across the fairway, but he was too hidden for a cellphone photo. (Click on the photo to see a circle around the first merlin.)
Merlin at Schenley Park golf course, 25 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
While looking at the tops of things, I found a pair of red-tailed hawks on a parking lot light last Saturday, silhouetted against the sky. This was not a very tall pole but the red-tails felt comfortable that no one was paying attention while one of them ate a squirrel.
Red-tailed hawks at CMU Morewood Gardens parking lot, 22 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
You might find something fun if you Keep Looking Up.
Like their bald eagle relatives, Steller’s sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) migrate to open water for the winter where they hang out in large groups near abundant fish. The Steller’s sea eagle in Maine is the only one on this continent so we can’t see his behavior among friends and competitors but there is plenty to see in his native range of Far Eastern Russia and northern Japan.
The link below shows tussling between Steller’s sea eagles and a fight with a golden eagle, an unrelated and much smaller bird. It happened at a crater lake in Kamchatka, Russia.
