Tag Archives: Raptors

Another Accidental Big Year: Sneed’s 2022 Recap

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FatherSonBirding’s millions of loyal fans will have no doubt noticed a paucity of posts the past few months, and we sincerely apologize, noting the severe nationwide downturn in consumer confidence and the real estate market that this has obviously precipitated. Fortunately, our silence has been a result of good things happening to Braden and me. Braden has been having some exceptional academic experiences during his fall semester at UMaine while I have been kept busy both birding and working on several exciting book projects that have come my way. That said, we’d like to take a couple of posts to wrap up the last few months and, indeed, our entire year of birding. Since Braden is studying for finals, I’ll go first.

Some of you followed my “Accidental Big Year” last year in which I set a new personal best of 352 ABA species during 2021. Believe it or not, I’ve blundered into another accidental Big Year in 2022. How the heck did that happen? I mean, I have definitely underperformed in my home state of Montana this year, notching my lowest total in several years. Fortunately, our trips to New York City and Arizona put me within striking distance. By early October, my count sat at a tantalizing 335 species, only 17 birds short of tying last year’s record, but where would the additional species come from? Some good writing news led to the answer.

This summer, I landed a contract to write about conservation on military bases, with a special focus on Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. I chose this base because I spent all of my summers growing up with my father in Pensacola—adjacent to Eglin. Call it nostalgia or a desire to learn more about the area’s species, but I arranged to interview biologists down there to find out what they were doing. First, though, I decided to stop to see my brother in Atlanta, Georgia.

On my recent trip, I didn’t get photos of my best Atlanta birds, but Tufted Titmice are always a blast to see.

Honestly, I didn’t know how many new birds I’d see in Atlanta. Migration season was waning, and it was possible warblers and other songbirds had already moved through. In general, they had, but thanks to some intensive studying and tutelage by Braden, I was able to score a number of great birds including a trio of wonderful warblers: Blackpoll, Tennessee, and most exciting, Cape May—a Lifer pour moi.

Leaving Georgia to take up a week-long residence with my stepmother Suzanne and her partner Jim in Milton, Florida, I wondered if I was close enough to top 352 for the year? Unfortunately, I arrived in Florida suffering from my first cold in three years—one I am just now getting over six weeks later. Not how I wanted to begin three consecutive long days of work at Eglin! Nonetheless, I persevered and got a bunch of great information from the base biologists. Oh, and I kept adding up Year Birds! In fact, I couldn’t have asked for a better bird to break my record. As biologist Kelly Jones drove me around teaching me about endangered salamanders, we ran into a group of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, one of America’s coolest and most unusual birds. These birds became endangered due to the catastrophic loss of longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast, but many people have been working to restore both the pines and the woodpeckers. Last I heard, Eglin is home to the nation’s fourth-largest population, but this was the only group I ran into while there.

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are the only North American woodpeckers that carve holes in living trees. Apparently, the sap running down the tree trunk helps deter snakes and other potential predators.

Not wanting to wear out my welcome with Suzanne and Jim, I used the weekend to take a jaunt over to Tallahassee to visit St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. My dad, a professor at the University of West Florida, led many field trips to St. Marks and always raved about it. More recently, Braden and Nick Ramsey, visited the refuge, seeing among other things a lone flamingo that has lived at the refuge for the past four years. I hoped also to see this bird—dubbed “Pinky”—but kept my expectations low.

I know they’re common, but I love Red-shouldered Hawks, and this is by far the best photo I’ve ever taken of one.

Upon arriving, I discovered that St. Marks truly is a magical place—a remnant of “Old Florida” with towering oaks and pristine marshes—and my visit got off to a good start with great views of a Red-shouldered Hawk and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at the visitor’s center. I asked the local naturalist if anyone had seen Pinky the flamingo lately and she said yes, but didn’t know where, so I decided to head down to Lighthouse Pool and work my way back. As I reached the pond, I happened to glance right. There, in the middle of the pond, stood a large orange blob.

“No way!” I exclaimed, braking to the side of the road as I reached for my binoculars. Sure enough, there stood Pinky—America’s most famous flamingo. Full disclosure: Pinky was not the most exciting bird on the planet, content to just stand there and preen when s/he felt like it. Taking a walk along the southern edge of the pond, however, I picked up lots of other nice Year Birds including Reddish Egret, Tricolored Heron, Short-billed Dowitcher, Semipalmated Plover, and more.

I’m not sure where Pinky got his name, but to me he looked obviously orange. Still, an official Lifer for me, though I did see American Flamingos thirty years ago in Bonaire.

My visit to St. Marks was far from finished. As I drove back up the road, I thought I spotted a rail at the East River Pool location. I didn’t—and this was not the first time I’d mistaken a Common Gallinule for a rail! Training my eyes out on the pond, though, my heart picked up. Why? Because way out there among a large group of wading birds, I spotted another Lifer: Wood Stork! Along with Roseate Spoonbills, another Year Bird. My Lifer-palooza hadn’t ended, either. Following Braden’s directions I drove to another part of the refuge to hear my Lifer Clapper Rails.

This is at least the second time I’ve mistaken a Common Gallinule for a Clapper Rail. I do believe they’re closely related, though, so I hope that you, my dear readers, cut me some slack!

I returned to Montana with a total of 372 Year Birds and have since picked up a few more, thanks to a fortuitous discovery of Montana’s first Long-tailed Duck of the winter, along with the first Bonaparte’s Gulls I’ve ever seen in Missoula County. These and a Horned Grebe now have me sitting at 375, well in excess of my previous ABA Big Year record. My guess is that I’ll pick up one or two more when Braden gets home in a couple of weeks—though what they might be I have no idea. And you know, it really doesn’t matter. While it’s fun to count birds, it’s even more fun to get out and see them and, hopefully, make some new friends along the way. At St. Marks I met several delightful birders to share my adventures with. I hope that as 2022 draws to a close, you all have your own memorable birding adventures combined with heavy doses of peace and friendship.

My Lighthouse Pool checklist.

Perhaps my biggest score of the year was seeing the first Long-tailed Duck recorded this winter in Montana—and my first male ever. If this isn’t a glorious animal, I don’t know what is!

All “Cooped” Up!

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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 5: The Swift and the Great

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Even though Braden’s job is to look for Northern Goshawks this summer, that threatens to be outshined by his remarkable experiences with owls. As if Northern Saw-whet, Western Screech, and Spotted owls weren’t enough, here he recounts an amazing encounter with yet another amazing owl—and one of the continent’s most elusive “other” birds.

The morning after seeing the Spotted Owl, our campsite was graced with a little rain. Apparently, rain is infrequent in the Sierra, and we welcomed the weather as both a boost for the forests and an opportunity to sleep in. I, however, could not sleep, and decided to go birding. While my job had me birding every day, I had only actually gone birding outside of work a few times so far, and figured this would be a good way to refresh myself before the rain ceased and we headed back to finish the same PAC we’d started yesterday.

Birding consisted of walking around Crandell Campground with my eyes on the skies. I had two rare targets in mind: Northern Pygmy-Owl and Black Swift. The former, my favorite owl species, had eluded us thus far on counts and I hoped to spot one posted on top of a dead snag during my walk. Black Swifts, meanwhile, came to mind because of the weather. These waterfall-nesters, which generally hunt hundreds of feet in the air, and up to dozens of miles from their nest sites, were known for being pushed to lower altitudes in overcast conditions, which just happened to be the conditions gracing Stanislaus National Forest today. Both birds were definitely long shots, but then again, why not shoot for the stars?

I did not find either of my targets on my walk, and headed back to the campground as the rain began to subside. My co-workers, who had all retreated to their tents, began to rise, and I started to load things into the truck when I heard twittering overhead. I looked up two see two large, slim birds race over the open sky above me. The looks were among the briefest I’ve ever had at birds, but they were enough.

“Holy Cow! Black Swifts!”

Here in Montana, we most often see Vaux’s Swifts like the pair above. The much rarer Black Swift is half-again as large and much darker than the birds you see here. Black Swifts only nest next to and behind waterfalls and on wet cliffs—a specialized habitat that helps explain their Vulnerable status.

Sam, the other big birder in the group, was out of his tent in a flash, and we ran down the road after the swifts. They disappeared within seconds, headed to some other foraging destination, but not before Sam spotted them. It was his lifer, and a bird I’d only seen once, in Glacier Park five years before.

That evening, after finishing our survey, we met Kevin, the crew lead for the Spotted Owl, at the Pinecrest Ranger Station. An hour and a half later, we pulled up in a mystery location in the oak foothills of the Western Sierra, somewhere near the town of Twain Harte. In the past week, the owl crew had found Great Gray Owls here several times, some of the only known individuals of the species to occur in the state of California outside Yosemite National Park. We’d already heard the stories of finding the Great Grays, and how everyone on the owl crew had completely freaked out over it, and hoped to do the same tonight. The owls had been recorded in three locations all somewhat near each other, and our job tonight was to figure out if they were the same family of owls or multiple families by searching two of the locations at the same time.

I went with Kevin and Sam, while Ivara and Miles tagged along with Grant, a ranger for Stanislaus National Forest. None of the habitat made sense for what I thought I knew about Great Gray Owl. The owls in Missoula frequented open pine forests, and in Canada, the species nested in boreal bogs. Here, though, we walked through dense oak foothill habitat, complete with our first look at and experience with Poison Oak.

After quickly searching a stand of trees, the three of us loitered in a small meadow waiting for the sun to set. The elevation was lower than where we conducted goshawk surveys, and because of that we noted different bird species, including Acorn Woodpecker, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and California Quail. Suddenly, Kevin heard something. Uphill, through the oaks, came the sound of strange yelps. Comparing the calls to Merlin revealed that these were indeed the begging calls of juvenile Great Gray Owls.

This obviously is not the same Great Gray Owl that Braden’s crew saw recently (note the snow), but you can see why this majestic creature is a favorite among birders.

“Let’s go get em.” said Kevin, and we started up the hill as the sky grew gray, then indigo. Stars blinked into existence above us as we dodged snags and particularly large patches of Poison Oak, although walking through the rash-inducing plant was inevitable in some places. Thank god for long pants. 

After twenty minutes of following the calls up the hill, Kevin held out a hand, then pointed upwards. There, on an oak tree up the hill from us perched the unmistakable silhouette of a Great Gray Owl, moving its head up and down as it called to its mother for food. After scanning the ground for Poison Oak, I sat down and lifted my binoculars to my eyes. Even with low light levels, I could make out the longer neck, facial disk and piercing eyes of the owl. The bird still lacked the clean look of an adult Great Gray, but it could already fly and thus was probably at least a month old. Soon, we spotted the shape of the second juvenile flush from a branch below the first. The experience was magical—sitting underneath the California night sky, amongst oaks, as one of the rarest and most famous creatures in the world called from a tree above us. We weren’t able to determine if this was the same owl family as before or a new one, but either way, these were owls I would never forget.

No, this is not an asteroid hurtling toward Earth—just a really, really distant phone photo of a Great Gray Owl we saw . . . or maybe some kind of sea slug? I can’t remember!

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.