Unlike most species of gulls, Bonapart’s gulls nest in trees.
Baby Bonapart’s gulls stayed in the nest for a day before jumping out and heading for nearby boreal ponds.
The aggressive and noisy Bonaparte’s gulls emit ear-splitting screams and drop hot, slimy poop bombs as they drive away enemies from their eggs and young, leaving enemies from ravens to eagles to nosy photographers diving for cover.
Bonaparte’s gull attacks!
To view video of Bonaparte’s gull click the link below.
I couldn’t help but notice two hooded falcons perched on the back seat of a VW bug in the grocery store parking lot where I worked. ( forty-five years ago!) A guy with a ponytail drove it. When I said something about the prairie falcons, he looked a bit surprised. I guess nobody had ever correctly identified his falcons before. That’s how I first met Terry Heath. And with that introduction, we shared a short conservation that ended with Terry inviting me to photograph his hunting falcons. As I tagged along on hunting trips It became clear that for Terry, falconry was no hobby, nor was it just a sport hunting venture. No, Terry was in the grip of a full-blown obsession with falcons.
THE PRAIRIE FALCON
Week-old prairie falcons huddle together on a simple scrape at their cliff eyrie. The aggressive divebombing adults give Terry a glimpse into the potential flight characteristics of the young falcons.
Early in her training, (above) the young female prairie falcon is content to sit on the sidelines and let Terry demonstrate. From such modest beginnings, the prairie quickly responds to training and will be introduced to wild pheasants and ducks soon. (below)
Casting off…
The prairie falcon.
A PEREGRINE NAMED ANGEL
Another mallard for the bag. Every flight of Angel, the peregrine, was stunning,
Angel suddenly reappears out of nowhere to stoop on the lure. (above) For a few worrying minutes, Angel was nowhere to be seen. Had she made a kill out of sight? A big worry. 
A falcon with a full crop is difficult to coax to the glove. Candy (right) was a fixture on the hunting trips. But once, after hawking for pheasants, Candy went missing and didn’t return to the car. Before leaving Terry threw out his coat. The next morning there she lay, waiting.
Searching for suitable quarry for the falcons led us out to the edge of the lava flows of eastern Idaho. Passing a pair of ravens hanging out along the road, Terry slows and pulls over a couple of hundred yards down the road. Stepping out of the van Terry removes the peregrines hood and lifts the falcon above his head. In an instant, the peregrine is off the glove and power-pumping those long, slender wings into the wind towards the dumb-struck ravens. From a jump start, the ravens took flight and started to climb. Now, these ravens share the sky with all kinds of raptors from goshawks to golden eagles so the sudden appearance of a peregrine is no big deal. But this one had them in the crosshairs! Though the peregrine’s power of flight is legendary, she could not outclimb the ravens. A peregrines advantage is on the way back down and the ravens knew it. The flight was quickly a quarter mile above the sage highlands and climbing. But the persistent peregrine wouldn’t give up. As the flight threatened to disappear, out came the lure.
Desperate to get back to open water, the mallard deploys futile last-second maneuvers. The peregrines focus is clear. Mine, not so much.
Wary of leaving the security of the Slana River, an adult beaver slowly approaches a scent mound. Interrupting an invisible beam, the beaver triggers a digital camera to capture this self portrait.
BEAVER BEHAVIOR
Hauling armloads of mud and moss, beavers continually add to their mounds and frequently add a fresh scent. Bulletin boards for beavers, scent mounds are important features of their territory. And a good place to set up a camera trap I thought. You know, just to see what might pass. Kind of a wildlife selfie station. I pick the place, they pick the time.
Once or twice a month this wandering lynx passed the lens.
Over the spring/summer months the camera had several views of this scent mound. To the beavers the camera was part of the scenery. I had nightmares of them chewing on the camera or even pulling the whole camtraption into the river. But they completely ignored it. Beavers sometimes used the mound as a feeding platform or to just sit and chill for a few minutes. A late night surprise, the south end of a northbound grizzly. (below)
After a couple weeks of rainy weather I arrive at the camera station with a dry Nikon. The set-up is prone to problems. False triggers, battery failure, flash and sensor failure due to moisture, even snowshoe hares chewing cords. The beavers were busy refurbishing an old bare-bones lodge downstream and had all but stopped coming to the scent mound. But I kept the camera station operating. I like unexpected surprises.
From a perch in a stand of stunted black spruce, a well camouflaged immature northern goshawk stalks its prey. Their short, wide wings and long tail give it both speed and manoeuverability to pursue prey in the forest. No small bird or mammal is safe from a sudden ambush, but this winter the large accipiters key on snowshoe hares.
The snowshoe hare has perfected the art of camouflage, but as an extra defense against the goshawks, they often use snow burrows. But the snowshoe hares’ best defense against the sudden attacks by goshawks is its nocturnal behavior.
An adult northern goshawk feeds on a snowshoe hare.
As I photographed a snowshoe hare this immature northern goshawk suddenly appeared out of the blue shadows and killed my photo subject. She mantles her prey with powerful wings.
Often northern goshawks show little fear of humans. When I approached it flew a few yards away but quickly returned to its prey. The goshawk fed for nearly an hour leaving only the feet, fur, guts, head and large bones.
While the snowshoe hare population is near its peak this year, their primary predators populations (northern goshawk, lynx, coyote and great horned owl) are also peaking. And this heavy predation will inevitably cause the next snowshoe hare population crash.
For months, over two nesting seasons I spent nearly every day in the company of northern goshawks. Slowly they would reveal their secret lives.
High in the canopy a female tends to her day old chicks.
After the chicks hatch, northern goshawks become very aggressive at their nests. By visiting the nesting territory on a daily basis, starting early in the nesting season I seemed to have gained the trust of the goshawks. By building my blind near their nest under the cover of darkness, wearing the same clothes everyday and never disturbing the nest, I was able to climb into my photo blind or walk around the forest below unmolested.
The great female goshawk rose up from her eggs and stepped to the edge of her three-foot wide nest. Eyes of blood locked onto her target. Diving headfirst off the nest, she pumped her wings quickly accelerating to attack speed. Long tail feathers flared and pivot, sending the goshawk speeding around the base of a large douglas fir and crashing into the understory. Squealing in terror, a red squirrel jumped to the trunk and instinctively darted to the opposite side, sticking like velcro to the rough, dry bark, then squirrel shot up the trunk into the canopy. Again the goshawk attacked. Going up, the squirrel was faster but on the way back down the goshawk closed the distance.
Among the thick branches of the canopy the squirrel had the edge, but not by much. Using feet, bill and wings, the goshawk literally swam through the boughs. Desperate to lose the hawk, the squirrel spiraled up the nest tree and right over those precious eggs, before jumping to an adjacent tree. The squirrel somehow missed being snagged by those talons, utilizing unearthly tricks of speed and anti-gravity. I could keep track of the chase through the various observation and lens slits cut into the photo blind, but the action was much too quick and hard to follow so I missed getting any photos. It was inevitable I guess, when I felt the squirrel coming up my blind tree, the gos riding his wind. A vision of the squirrel taking refuge up my pant leg was suddenly a painful possibility. Just as the squirrel shot inside the blind I yelled and smacked the side of the blind. Luck was cheap that June morning. After a couple of quick laps around the legs of me and my tripod, the squirrel dashed back out and jumped to the next tree about five feet away.
Slamming through the branches with little regard for its plumage, the gos didn’t let up. But the squirrel had a little luck of his own stashed away. Running headfirst down the trunk, the squirrel made an Olympic jump 25 feet from the ground. Bouncing off the forest floor the squirrel made for thicker scenery. After orbiting several more big trees and an amazing sling-shot the squirrel made it to a thick jungle of downfall. For the next 30 minutes, the goshawk perched 20 feet below her nest and preened. The squirrel barked, chattered and buzzed and told the world what he thought of goshawks nesting in his five acres.
Three weeks earlier, the goshawk had calmly sat on her eggs while this same squirrel climbed the nest tree, dug into the bottom of the nest to find and nibble on mushrooms. I guess it seemed like the perfect place to dry mushrooms.
Sneaking a peek from the thicket of salmon berry and mountain ash a brown bear checks to see if the coast is clear. The bruin wants to get to the spawning pink salmon but is often kept away by a herd of nosy and noisy bad mannered tourists. When the bear does arrive, rather than giving the bear plenty of room to feed, tourists often crowd the bear hastening his departure before he has had his fill.
Left: Soloman Gulch
The brown bear, hungry but shy pauses as he works up the courage to approach the salmon and the tourists. This reluctance is something I share with the big brown bear.
As the tide moves out exposing fish killed by feeding Stellar’s sea lions, the lanky brown bear cleans up. The Stellar’s sea lions, are afraid of the bear and move away from shore.
Like the brown bear, Stellar’s sea lions come to Soloman Gulch to feed on the millions of pink salmon arriving here to spawn. Over the past twenty -five years, I have witnessed an increasing number of Sellar’s sea lions spending the first week of July near the mouth of Soloman Gulch. This year I counted over one hundred sea lions together at a nearby resting site during low tide.
Pink salmon by the millions arrive at the mouth of Soloman Gulch to spawn.
A stellar’s sea lion bites a pink salmon in half. This is a common technique used by some of the sea lions. I overheard some guy telling his wife that they bite them in half so they can swallow the fish in two pieces. But what actually is happening is a bit different. Like the bears, the lea lions soon tire of a straight diet of salmon and quickly begin to be more selective. What they want more than anything are the eggs. That’s why both bears and sea lions both often drop the males soon often they are caught. When a sea lion catches an egg-laden female salmon they may bite hard at the head end of the fish then violently jerk the fish to the side, ripping it in half and keeping the salmon head and guts along with the eggs in its mouth. The photo above shows the sea lion had the wrong end of the salmon and was left with just a tail. Visitors often comment on how wasteful the sea lions are but nothing really goes to wast. Bears, gulls, bald eagles, sea otters, harbor seals get what the sea lions leave behind, not to mention all the other hungry fish and crabs and other marine scavengers.
The brown bear grabs a small salmon and carries it back to the seclusion of Soloman Gulch.
Dolly Varden, a species of char, compete for food in a small Alaskan creek. The small fish four to ten inches in length feed on aqatic insect carried past by the current.
I used an old Aqua-Vision underwater housing built for an old Nikon F3 35 mm film camera. By gutting the housing, I was able to accomidate a high quality digital NiKon D3s. The camera is triggered by remote control.
Ava and Eli love fishing for the little dollies!
Dolly varden
Very few birch still have unshed leaves during the long Alaskan winter and most are just too high for the hares to reach. But this winter extra heavy snows, more than three feet deep in places, brought a limited amount of these prefered leaves within reach of the hares.
Alder is on a snowshoes “short list” of favorite winter foods. Of course leaves and small branches are prefered.
This snowshoe hare feeds on the bark of alpine birch. Hares often dig deep into the snow to reach the small twigs of blueberry. And, the large number of willow species found in these northern boreal forests are another important winter food.
Snowshoe at sunset checks out a birch sapling.
Denali Park Road
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdHkD5d8CE
Teenage Alaskan wolf discovers her awesome abilities.
Tundra swans migrating south Along the Alaskan Range.
Bull moose
Snowshoe hare
Lynx
Denali National Park
Grizzly bear
Northern hawk owl
Rebecca and Karen in Denali
Northern goshawk
Gray wolves
Red foxes
Gyrfalcon and arctic ground squirrel
Grizzly bear
Female great gray owl holds another red-backed vole just delivered by her mate. The well fed owlets are not hungry at the moment so the vole will be placed in the nest for later. For nearly four weeks I had a rare and intimate view of the owls family life at the nest.
As the female raises up from her brooding, she gives me my first look at the tiny owlets.
The owlets hatching over a period of about a week account for their age and size difference. Competition among the owls for food favors the older owlets. The smallest owlet, here just a couple of days old, could not hold its own and one morning it was gone.
https://youtu.be/gG-pWZZjKt4
Watch video of male delivering a red-backed vole. (above)
After a couple of weeks there is no longer a need for constant brooding and the female finally gets a little time to herself. But even then she stays close and alert for danger. One day a pair of ravens hung around the nest in an attempt to harass her from the nest long enough to steal a chick. She held tight and her mate arrived to chase the ravens about. Eventually the ravens left.
As the female perched near the nest her mate arrives with prey and she follows him in.
Arriving at the nest the female takes possession of the red-backed vole from her mate. (right) After a brief pause at the nest the male is off again to continue hunting. (below)
Visit next week for the final post in this series, SECRET LIFE OF A FOREST HUNTER-PART THREE
Snowshoe hare welcomes a change of diet as spring finally arrives. Continue reading