Category Archives: Bird Behavior

All “Cooped” Up!

Today, we take a break from Braden’s High Sierra adventures to explore how we all bird through the summer doldrums. Here I share a surprising discovery right in my own neighborhood. If you subscribe to FSB, please share your own similar story, and if you don’t subscribe—what are you waiting for? We only sell your information to people who will give us a LOT of money (just kidding; we do not share any of this information). So please fill out the box down to the right—and make sure you receive every “episode”.

How are you spending the summer birding doldrums? When we first started, Braden and I pretty much stopped birding during July and August—until we learned that there are still many birds to be had during the Dog Days! Even though it’s still summer, some shorebirds are already making their way south from their Arctic breeding grounds and can show up almost anywhere. Last summer, Braden and Nick Ramsey joined a bunch of other stellar birders for an epic day at Glacier National Park—and, of course, this summer Braden is birding the heck out of California. As for me, I am simply enjoying the ordinary birds around Missoula, trying to sharpen my skills so I can distinguish the call of a Lazuli Bunting from that of a Yellow Warbler! Experienced birders know, however, that even “ordinary birding” can produce extraordinary results.

**Even during the Summer Blahs, an occasional bird will fly out for a photo-op! Thank you, Mr. Lazuli Bunting!**

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take our dog Lola on an early walk around Greenough Park to beat the heat. For those of you familiar with Greenough, Lola and I parked in the lot midway up the east side of the park, and crossed the two pedestrian bridges so that we could begin walking clockwise around the park—and better spot any caffeine-crazed bicyclists barreling down on us. Sure enough, after only a hundred yards on the main path, a large, crazed shape came right at us. But it wasn’t a bicycle. It was a bird—and it zoomed a mere ten feet above my head! On instinct, I spun around and chased after it, hoping for a solid ID before it disappeared. To my surprise, the bird swooped up into a tree only fifty meters away.

**Even while not actively hanging with the chicks, at least one Cooper’s Hawk parent never perched far away.**

By this time, I had 99% concluded that this was a Cooper’s Hawk—a kind of accipiter especially adapted for catching birds and flying through trees. According to Birds of the World, 47 species of accipiters live on the planet, but here in the U.S. we have only three: the smaller Sharp-shinned Hawk or “Sharpie”; the larger Cooper’s Hawk or “Coop”; and the Northern Goshawk, our largest accipiter and the bird Braden is chasing around the Sierras this summer. Braden and I don’t often get good looks at Coops so I hoped that this one would stay in the tree long enough for me to observe it. It did—and the reason startled me. In a pine next to the busy path, the Cooper’s Hawk couple had built a nest! Even better, the nest had babies!

**During my second visit to the Coop nest, the babies generally kept their heads down—save for this guy. Want to bet s/he is first out of the nest?**

I, of course, hadn’t brought my camera with me, but in a way that was better because it allowed me to observe the action without worrying about getting a good photo. Speaking of action, I forgot to mention that when the adult flew by me it had been carrying prey—something large and furry, maybe a rabbit. As I watched, the adult started butchering this critter and feeding it to the ravenous chicks. And speaking of chicks, I was amazed to see four of them—and all quite large. Later, I learned that this is not unusual, and a pair will sometimes raise even more, a testament to the hard-working parents. In fact, even though first-year mortality runs fairly high, Cooper’s Hawks seem to have an excellent survival rate as adults and have been known to breed up through twelve years of age.

**Incoming! On my third visit, I just loved watching the young Coops testing out their flying abilities—even if they did occasionally land on each other!**

Since discovering the nest, I’ve returned two more times, and each time the babies had made marked progress. My last visit, I watched them hopping in and out of the nest, testing their wings for a departure that couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks away. They also were quickly filling out their juvenile coloration, transforming from white fuzz balls to serious-looking predators before my eyes. At least one parent, though, was never far away.

**Ready for launch? Pretty darned close. Observing the Coop nest made me realize that the young have blue eyes! How’s that for a blue-eyed baby?**

It all just goes to show that even when we think birding is dead, there’s a lot going on. We just have to keep getting out there and paying attention. Who knows? You may have a Cooper’s nest in your backyard right now! Coops are famously adaptable and found in every region of the Lower 48, often in urban environments and often all year-round. In fact, their numbers have increased dramatically in the past half-century—a nice success story in a time when so many birds are in trouble.

Braden’s Tales from the High Sierras, Episode 4: The Surprising Sierra Spotted Owls

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We dedicate this post to our loyal subscriber—and Braden’s grandma—Penny Collard on her 75th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PENNY! We Love You!

In Episode 4 of Braden’s California adventures, he dives into one of the West’s most famous raptors, the Spotted Owl. Thanks to his “sister team” working on this listed species, he shares his first encounter with these charismatic critters and learns about their status in the Sierras. Also see his Big Year update at the end of this post!

Besides my crew’s surveys of Northern Goshawks, the other major species being studied by The Institute for Bird Populations in the Stanislaus National Forest is an even more famous raptor: the Spotted Owl. We’d already met the Spotted Owl team once, and spent a good amount of time with Ramiro Aragon, the lead for the owl crew and the only adult we really had contact with in the field. Ramiro told us that the national forest hosted significantly more owls than goshawks. To wit, it had taken us two weeks to find our own goshawks while the owl crew found owls almost nightly, and continued to monitor them and their nests throughout the season. On the other hand, while our job definitely came with some difficulty, the Spotted Owl workers had it twice as rough. They had nonexistent sleep schedules, and were instructed to chase after any Spotted Owls they detected, regardless of what topography or vegetation stood in the way. Often, the vegetation that stood in the way was Poison Oak.

Fortunately, during our goshawk surveys, we also quickly got a handle on what areas might host Spotted Owls. The owl my dad and I had seen in Southeast Arizona nested in a shady ravine, and that’s exactly what the Sierran owls liked too, despite being a different subspecies. At several PACs we located Spotted Owl feathers, beautiful long feathers with intricate patterns of alternating brown and cream. The day after we found our first goshawks, we were bushwhacking across a hill in a relatively shady area. I had just begun to contemplate crossing a creek flowing in front of me when I heard Ivara through the radio.

“There’s an owl.”

I stopped in my tracks, questions popping up in my brain. What kind? Where?

Both were answered. “It’s a Spotted. Come up towards me, slowly.”

Seeing Spotted Owls and learning that they are probably the most common owls in the Sierras gives me hope for the future of this remarkable species—and the birds that live along with it. You can help protect this and countless other sensitive species by supporting The Institute for Population Studies, The American Bird Conservancy, and other conservation groups.

Soon, the four of us sat on a log in a clearing in the forest, staring at a Spotted Owl perched not more than twenty feet from us in a Douglas-fir. This one, unlike the one my dad and I had seen in Arizona, was fully awake, lazily watching us and our cameras. A pair of juncos hopped around the base of the tree where the owl roosted, and it occasionally turned its head towards them as if the juncos were children playing.

We watched the owl for at least thirty minutes, and everyone seemed to be losing their minds. Sam and Miles especially had never seen one before, despite hearing stories about this near-endangered species for years.

It seems that Spotted Owls are still abundant in the Sierras, thanks to having less strict habitat requirements and no competition or interbreeding with Barred Owls. In fact, we learned that Spotted is probably the most common owl in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada.

Meanwhile, coastal Spotted Owls are quite threatened. Instead of requiring shady canyons, they need large tracts of old-growth rainforest, a habitat that has been mostly logged. What’s more, thanks to human disturbance, Barred Owls have spread to the West Coast from eastern North America. These owls, which are cousins of Spotted Owls, are more aggressive and push Spotted Owls out of territories. They also will hybridize with Spotted, muddling the gene pool for this species. As I stared at the owl, it gave me hope that the populations of this species are still strong in the Sierras. With conservation-minded individuals working tirelessly to protect them, let’s hope that it stays that way.

Braden’s Big Year Update: As many of you know, Braden set out to see 400 North American bird species in 2022—a goal he smashed on our trip to Arizona. Accordingly, he raised his Big Year goal to 500, and thanks to relentless birding in California, he now stands at 440. Even better, he will be heading to Santa Cruz for a pelagic birding trip this weekend and if all goes well, he may add another 15 or 20 species to his list. Still, 500 is a big number and he’s got a lot of work to do. Keep reading FatherSonBirding to follow his progress!

Braden’s Tales from the High Sierras, Episode 3: Goin’ for Goshawks

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“The Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) is an apex predator occurring across North America and Eurasia. The species has received considerable conservation focus in late-seral conifer forests of western North America, where its habitat has been substantially reduced and altered by timber harvest and is increasingly at risk from high severity fire, drought, and forest pathogens. In the Sierra Nevada range of California, management and conservation of goshawks are hampered by a lack of knowledge of their basic space use and movement ecology.” —from abstract of Blakey et al. “Northern Goshawk (Accipiter Gentilis) Home Ranges, Movements, and Forays Revealed by GPS-Tracking” J. Raptor Res. 54(4):388–401.

In this third installment of his California adventure, Braden describes his job surveying for Northern Goshawks (see paragraph above for why). The birds are extremely difficult to locate, but as the team heads out into a particularly difficult survey block, success may be just around the corner . . .

The point of my “volunteer position” (with stipend) this summer is to find as many Northern Goshawks in Stanislaus National Forest as possible. The Institute for Bird Populations, my employer, has developed a protocol for looking for goshawks, one that my team follows to the best of our ability, although heat, brush, and apparently, bears, sometimes cause us to modify our schedule and strategy.

**While PACs like this one are fairly easy to negotiate, on others we earn every penny of our summer stipends!**

In late June, after roughly two weeks without any goshawks, we arrived early to another one of our PACs—the areas created for us to survey based on Northern Goshawk territory sizes, analysis of goshawk habitat from GIS and private property lines. I am not allowed to reveal the PAC’s location without violating half a dozen National Security laws, but this one looked particularly difficult. We also got off on the wrong foot when I had to walk back to the truck and retrieve batteries for our FoxPro—aka the “FoxSparrow”—the large speaker we use to call for goshawks. As we finally got started, however, we spread out thirty feet from each other, then followed our compasses north down an intensely steep ravine littered with decaying logs. What’s more, this PAC was the shape of a paint splatter, with all sorts of offshoot areas that would require us to walk up and down the sides of ravines over and over. The Mountain Misery we’d experienced at Brushy Hollow had been a piece of cake compared to this.

After six hundred meters of our first transect, Ivara’s voice crackled through the radio. “Whitewash.”

Now, whitewash (the term for bird poop on a branch or base of a tree) could be evidence for any bird species. After all, every bird poops—I’ve seen statues covered in pigeon whitewash in the middle of cities. However, what caught our attention was what Ivara said next: “Lots and lots of whitewash.”

The four of us halted, scanning the ground for evidence of raptors, and I quickly noticed additional whitewash all over the ground and trees around us. And then Sam spoke up.

“I’ve got an active raptor nest.”

**These bizarre-looking Northern Goshawk babies were a real cause célèbre for our crew after searching for weeks to find a new nest.**

Within minutes, all four of us had gathered to watch the nest from Sam’s vantage point, puzzling over the chicks inside it.

“They don’t look like the Red-tailed chicks we saw at Lyon Ridge.”

“Live boughs are a good indication of a goshawk nest.”

“That thing is so shaded. Would a Red-tailed nest there?”

We hiked a little closer, heading to a nearby hill so I could document the nest and chicks with my camera. Then we waited. No one in our crew had much experience identifying baby raptors, although we certainly got good views of them, but it was only a matter of time before the adult returned. Then we’d have our answer.

And return the adult did, after about twenty minutes. All four of us heard it simultaneously—the call we’d been broadcasting from the FoxSparrow for the last two weeks. The goshawk appeared through the trees, heading right for us. It swooped low, then alighted on a branch above our heads, immediately giving me the best looks I’d ever had of a Northern Goshawk. Miles and Sam quickly went off down the slope towards the nest tree to look for prey remains and identify the tree species, and the adult began to circle us, screaming its head off. After we collected the information we needed, we took one last look at the majestic creature and its babies, then got out of there.

**Our patience waiting at our first “self-found” NOGO nest was rewarded when this adult returned to check us out and try to drive us away.**

It was our first nest of the season, and the first goshawks we’d detected all on our own! Arriving back at the truck at roughly 9 in the morning, we crossed the PAC off of our list, then headed into town to pick up some celebratory s’mores.

Braden’s Tales from the High Sierras, Episode 1: Stumbling into Saw-whets

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We want to thank all of you for making June our biggest month ever at FatherSonBirding! The number of you viewing our posts absolutely demolished all previous records with more than 1300 visits to our site. We kick off July with the first of a series of posts from Braden. Since early June, he has been working as a field intern for The Institute for Bird Populations. His job? Monitoring Northern Goshawks on the west slope of California’s Sierras. While searching for the elusive accipiters, he and his four-person team are having birding adventures most of us only dream about. Here is his first field report: an encounter with Northern Saw-whet Owls.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

In our first week on the job my team leader, Ivara, decided that we would get the Black Oak PAC over with. A PAC is basically an area of land chosen kind of arbitrarily based on goshawk habitat, territory size and private land boundaries that we survey, and we usually try to complete a PAC every two days. Black Oak was by far the toughest PAC, but we dove right in, bushwhacking through brush in search of any signs of Northern Goshawks. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really focus on scanning the trees above us for nests given the sheer density of the vegetation growing on the slope in front of us. While birds certainly loved all of the brush, with Fox Sparrows and Nashville Warblers singing from exposed perches around me, the foliage did not welcome me as it did them. After about thirty minutes, I found myself wildly off my compass bearing, following the edge of an intimidating thicket in an attempt to get back to my correct line. We considered being five degrees off as “off course”. I was off by thirty!

**Some of the typical Sierras terrain where we conduct our Northern Goshawk Surveys.**

I took a deep breath, plunging into the vegetation in the direction of my coworkers and my correct bearing. I bent to avoid spiderwebs stretching between branches, jumping on top of decaying logs at any chance I got to relieve myself from the sticks that drew blood from my legs. After about fifty meters, the brush somehow worsened. I couldn’t see three feet in front of me, but I pressed on. And suddenly, I flushed a bird.

At first, my mind went to American Robin. It was a medium-sized, brown species, and it darted away from me as if planning to disappear into the impossible maze ahead. Instead, it landed on a nearby tree branch. I lifted my binoculars, peering through a small gap in the leaves, and exhaled in shock. My voice quavered as I spoke into my radio.

“Holy cow. I just found a baby Saw-whet Owl.”

I’d only seen pictures of juvenile Saw-whets once before, on a checklist from Missoula that I’d stared at with jealousy. This bird stared right back at me, its curious, unmoving eyes gazing at the beast that had just disturbed it. The bird’s back was a creamy brown color, adorned with a few spots, and a bushy unibrow accented golden eyes. I could barely see its tiny talons clutching the branch, complemented by buffy feathers that coated its legs.

Unfortunately, I was too lost to direct my coworkers to come see the owls, but I was in no hurry to continue the goshawk search. Our rule: looking for goshawks is important, but so is watching cool wildlife that happens to pop up! On cue, in fact, a second bird flew to a lower branch on the same tree. It was another juvenile owl! My brain registered that it must have just abandoned its day roost mere feet from where I stood. That meant—

My eyes scanned the foliage immediately around me and I saw it: a third baby owl who had not yet flushed in a young pine tree two feet from my face. Staring intensely at me. I didn’t dare move, shifting my gaze between this third, most fearless owl and its siblings in the mature tree behind it. I’d left my camera behind in anticipation of the tough bushwhacking, but slowly snapped a few photos with my phone. I’d never found a roosting owl all on my own before, and here I’d just blundered into three!

**This third, and most fearless, of the three baby Saw-whet Owls I discovered will forever be one of my most memorable birding encounters.**

After about twenty minutes of staring contests with the cutest birds I’ve ever seen, I slowly backed out the way I had come, taking a left into more brush. Soon, I was on my stomach, army-crawling through somehow-worse vegetation, but I couldn’t be happier. Little did I know that this would mark only the first of many unforgettable wildlife encounters I would experience in the coming weeks . . .

The Best Prairie Day Ever: Benton Lake NWR

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After speaking at the inaugural Billings Kid Lit Festival (see Billing’s Riverfront Park: Montana’s Premier Songbird Hotspot?), I awoke at 4:30 the next morning and hit the road by 5:15. My plan was to book it to Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge and start driving around the lake by 8:30. The problem? I kept passing ponds with birds in them—and I, of course, had to stop to find out what they were! My efforts were rewarded with a variety of ducks, Wilson’s Phalaropes, American White Pelicans, Sandhill Cranes and more, but delayed my arrival at Bowdoin until 9:30. Then, even greater disaster struck: I ran into way more birds than I expected at the Bowdoin visitor’s center—including both male and female Baltimore Orioles!

Bowdoin NWR lies at the eastern edge of the Baltimore Oriole’s range, but Braden and I have seen them often enough that it seems certain they breed there. Oh, and seeing both the male and this female offers an added clue!

Finally entering the first five-mile stretch of the loop, I was shocked by how much of the lake had been sucked dry by eastern Montana’s multi-year drought. This really was a disaster and I wondered if I would even find any place conducive to water birds. Meanwhile, I encountered great grassland birds including Long-billed Curlews, Loggerhead Shrike, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Lark Buntings, and Grasshopper, Vesper, Clay-colored, and Savannah Sparrows. Finally, near the end of the lake, I found water but at pathetically low levels. A much-vaunted Cassin’s Sparrow (discovered by Joshua Covill, I believe) had been observed repeatedly at about Mile 7 of the loop and I ran into Robin Wolcott and her husband who had driven over from Big Fork to see it. While we stood there, Robin did hear the sparrow, but with my crummy ears I couldn’t be sure so didn’t count it. I also had many miles to drive so I kept on truckin’, driving the three hours to Great Falls.

The next morning I again woke early, loaded up the car and arrived at Benton Lake NWR as dawn filtered over the prairie. After the dry conditions at Bowdoin, I fretted about Benton Lake—but my worries were hijacked by what may have been the most astonishing grassland birding experience I’ve ever had. It began with a sighting of a Long-billed Curlew in flight, always a welcome bird. Then, I saw other large shorebirds and stopped to behold the incredible courtship displays of Willets, flying madly around emitting their haunting, looping calls over the prairie. Other curlews joined in and a Marbled Godwit briefly gave chase to a Willet. Meanwhile, meadowlarks sang and a pack of coyotes unleashed their insane yelping cacophony across the landscape—all in the dawn light.

**Most birders take Willets for granted, but watching and listening to them display over the prairie where they breed will forever make them a favorite bird ‘o mine.**

Suddenly, I spotted a small bird rising high into the sky in an obviously courtship display. “No way,” I excitedly muttered, struggling to focus my camera on the small black dot. My thought? That it could be one of the prairie’s most magical creatures, a Sprague’s Pipit! Alas, Nick Ramsey studied my photos later and suggested it was actually a Horned Lark, and after further study, I agree. Still, it was no less incredible—especially because I didn’t even know that Horned Larks make such displays!

This “Sprague’s Pipit” got me uber-excited, but I learned later that it was almost surely a Horned Lark performing a similar high-altitude display. Thank you, Nick Ramsey, for setting me straight!

Passing the visitor center, I thought that I would finally make my way to the lake and start looking for water birds. Guess again. As soon as I turned right, down the dirt road, I stopped to look at juvenile Horned Larks and saw more Willets and curlews. Then, I spotted one of my top target birds: Upland Sandpipers! I had barely had a chance to look at them, when I saw another top target bird—a Short-eared Owl! As I was snapping some blurry photos of the owl, eight Sharp-tailed Grouse flew low across the road 100 meters in front of me and zoomed like cruise missiles across the prairie—something Braden and I had never seen at Benton Lake. But the best was yet to come . . .

Upland Sandpipers are one of our favorite grassland species—and they undertake one of Earth’s most incredible migrations, traveling from our prairies to southern South America in a matter of weeks each year!

As I was watching the Short-eared Owl, I noticed a white spot perhaps a quarter-mile away. At first I thought it was some man-made structure, but then it moved. I drove closer and raised my binoculars to see a sight I had never in my life observed—a male Sharp-tailed Grouse in full “impress mode” trying to woo a nearby female! Fumbling for my camera, I was so excited that my hands actually shook, and I watched this chase-and-pursue courtship for the next ten minutes. Like so many birds recently, a displaying male grouse was something I never thought I would see, and yet here it was when I was least expecting it!

A hopeful male Sharp-tailed Grouse tries to woo a mildly interested female (left). Sound familiar, gents?

My heart still racing, I finally moved on, and was relieved to see water filling the two main ponds—along with thousands of avocets, ducks, Eared Grebes, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, phalaropes, Forster’s Terns, Franklin’s Gulls, White-faced Ibises and just about everything else I had hoped to see. Water levels looked good to me, but refuge manager Bob Johnson later told me that they struggled to keep the ponds filled. They had the water rights, he said, but it cost so much—think hundreds of thousands of dollars—to pump the water up to the refuge that they had run out of money. That makes it more imperative than ever to support increased funding for our refuges and other wild lands by calling or emailing U.S. Senator Daines and our other representatives.

**It’s hard not to love ibises, and I was delighted to see at least nine White-faced during my circumnavigation of Benton Lake.**

I had planned to continue on to Freezeout Lake, but after four breathless hours at Benton, I wasn’t sure my sensory systems could handle it. As I said, it was my most incredible grassland birding day ever, and certainly my best at Benton Lake, not just for the species I saw, but for the intimate observations of their natural behaviors as they repeated their ancient life cycles. What’s more, I didn’t see a soul the entire time I was on the driving loop. It gave me a real, reverent feel for what the prairies must have been like before we plowed, grazed, and harnessed the vast majority of them. My wish is that we continue to protect Benton Lake and other vital refuges—and that all of you reading this get to visit there on a summer sunrise of your own.

My Benton Lake eBird list Oh, and my species count for the trip totaled 110!