Tag Archives: birds

SECRET LIFE OF A FOREST HUNTER- PART ONE

 

DSC6522A female great gray owl spreads her wings as she gently lands on the edge of her nest to resume incubating her four eggs.   For two months this nest is the nucleus of activity for a pair of great gray owls.  Owls do not build their own nests. Instead they use a variety of ready-made and vacant nests, like this one built many years before by northern goshawks.  The great grays I had photographed three decades ago in Idaho prefered the bowled out tops of large broken pine trees for their nests.

DSC7359Eggs laid in the third week of April must be protected from the weather, as incubation begins with the first egg. The female does all the incubating and will sit on her eggs for thirty days.

DSC7473To gain access to the nesting great grays, more than fifty feet above the forest floor, I scabbed two long extensions ladders together and added an additional extension using two by fours.  I had located the nest thirteen years ago.  The three-foot wide nest was built by northern goshawks in a towering quaking aspen. Every spring I’d hike to the remote nest site to check its status. Goshawks had used the nest only once during the last thirteen years.

 

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From my self-imposed confinement in the lofty, swaying photo blind, I witnessed much more than just the daily activities of the great gray owls.  The female owl and I watched red squirrels, that rarely seen red squirrel predator, the marten, groups of migrating caribou, and a variety of bird life.  Early one morning, not long after arriving, a huffing grizzly bear sow and yearling cub who had caught my scent quickly moved off beneath the blind.  Once a curious cow moose who could hear my camera clicking finally looked up.

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DSC2049A couple of times a day the female flies off the nest to drink, cast her pellet and perhaps stretch before returning to her precious clutch of eggs.

DSC6427The male hunts for his mate and has just arrived with prey, a baby red squirrel.  The male, who hunts during the day using sight and sound, is an opportunist and preys on a variety of small birds and mammals.  Red-backed voles are by far the most important prey but shrews, small birds, and young snowshoe hares are also prey.  Adult red squirrels are usually too alert and quick to be given much attention by the hunting male.  But young squirrels, probably raided from their grass and sphagnum nests, are regularly on the menu.

THE MARTEN

49-20-5The marten scrapes out a tough living in the northern forests.  The largely nocturnal members of the weasel family, prey on small birds and mammals.

49-37-2A tireless traveler, the marten (Martes americana) leaves an endless line of tracks through the Alaskan wilderness.  Like other members of the weasel family, martens successfully hunt quick prey like the red squirrel and snowshoe hare in deep snow. Tracks are the most common sign of the presence of martens.  Following or backtracking marten tracks will tell a story of what this tough, little predator has been up to and gives clues to their habits. Though they are seldom very common, martens are not endangered over most of their range.  But martens are so shy and secretive that little is known about their mysterious lives.   Old growth  forests with large trees and numerous standing and fallen dead trees are a martens prefered habitat, providing cover, food, shelter and cavities for their dens. Continue reading

SONG OF THE BOREAL

 

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For the past six weeks or so we have been delighted by the nocturnal trilling song of a little boreal owl.   I believe the male has claimed our little forested yard as his own.  He sings almost every night from one of the old northern flicker cavities in the black spruce stand surrounding our home.  With his little round head filling up the hole he serenades the darkness, or sometimes accompanies the glow and flicker of the aurora.

Click on the left side of the audio bar to hear the song of the boreal owl.

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The boreal owl is a nocturnal hunter of voles, shrews, flying squirrels  and small birds.

NESTING FLICKERS

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A female northern flicker approaches the nesting cavity.

Life at the nest of northern flickers is at a frantic level.  Most of the long, Alaskan summer days keeps the adults working at a breathless pace.  The pair at this nest take turns guarding the nest from the resident red squirrel or trespassing northern flickers and taking forays out into the black spruce forest to hunt for their main food, wood ants and their larva.  When the female arrives back at the nest cavity with food for the young, the male departs.

To listen to the audio clip, click on left side of the bar. Volume at right.   Adult male northern flicker responds to his mate appearing near the nest.  Then listen as female enters nesting cavity to feed chicks. Continue reading

RUFFED RHYTHM

28A ruffed grouse male moves slowly through thick cover as it feeds on buds, last years berries and new leaves.

Interior Alaska is definitely spruce grouse country.  But along creeks and river bottoms, in old burns, in fact almost anywhere where several species of trees grow in thickets, narrow veins of ruffed grouse habitat can be found.  Along the Slana River not far from where it enters the still modest Copper River,  aspen, poplar, birch, white and black spruce, alder and a jumble of willow species form thickets where the cryptic ruffed grouse lives.  Rose and high bush cranberry in the understory provide year round food for the few grouse that survive there. Continue reading

RUFUS CREEK IN WINTER

aurora borealis-16-23Overflow ice floods Rufus Creek as Aurora Borealis dance.

Rufus Creek flows through our ten acres of black spruce forest on its way North to the Slana River.  The northern boreal forest is a patchwork of dynamic land forms and plant communities, niches that a  few hardy species of wildlife can exploit.  Diversity of life here is low but the species and settings are spectacular. Continue reading

HUNTING LIKE A HAWK

DSC_2027A northern hawk owl perched atop a dead, black spruce overlooking its preferred hunting grounds, an Alaskan muskeg wetland.

The northern hawk owl is named after its hawk-like hunting behavior.  Like hawks, the hawk owl hunts by day using its keen eyesight to spot small birds and mammals.  The red-backed vole is by far the most important prey species. But the hawk owl is an opportunist and other species of voles and several species of shrews are also caught. During those years when snowshoe hares are plentiful, hawk owls will add these much larger prey species to their list, as will many species of birds from the tiny, common red-poll to birds up to the size of ptarmigan. Continue reading

OWLS BY DAY, OWLS BY NIGHT

BY DAY

DSC_1262Adult male northern hawk owl is active during the day.

For a few weeks I have been photographing a pair of northern hawk owls that have nested in a stand of tall white spruce.  Hawk owl populations are cyclic and for the past three years they have been rare in my part Alaskan interior.  Over the past twenty years, I have been trying to capture their little known life history.  In those twenty years I have found only six or seven active nests.  Continue reading

FRAMED BY A RAVEN

604-197Raven pair get acquainted during a snowstorm.

Ravens have been lurking around mankind ever since humans began making footprints.  They are quick to learn and take advantage of any  food sources we provide.  And, ravens are smart, perhaps the smartest bird on the planet. They have the largest range of vocalizations of any living creature except of course, for us humans. Continue reading