Tag Archives: naturalist

THE BOREAL OWL-PART 2

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665-14-15Boreal owl with red-backed vole.

I have been continuing to keep track of the little boreal owl in Slana.  Its calling is falling off.  I no longer hear it in the daylight hours though my friend still reports hearing it during trips to the outhouse late at night. Less calling means it is much harder to locate but I am still finding it in the thick dark woods by searching an area of about one hundred yards by two hundred yards.  This small area seems to be its preferred daytime roosting area.  Slowly walk back and forth through the spruce and poplar forest and scanning every tree I find it about 30 percent of the time.  Once I was guided to its location by the calling of a couple upset boreal chickadees.  It is never in the same perch. Continue reading →

BOREAL OWL

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I got a tip a couple years ago about a lady who had complained about being kept awake at night because the snipes were making too much racket.  But it had been too early in the season and I had a sneaky feeling it wasn’t snipes that were keeping her awake.

So, when I paid them a visit a couple weeks ago, I pulled out my I pod and speaker and asked if this is what she had heard.  “Oh yes”, that’s it she insisted.  “I could never forget that call.  And they’re back!  I have been hearing them again almost every night. ”

This was exciting news to me, because the call I had played was not the display flight of the common snipe.  Instead I had played the territorial call of the boreal owl.  She was quite surprised that it was a small owl she had been hearing. Continue reading →

WILLOW PTARMIGAN

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I’ve spent the last four afternoons looking for willow ptarmigan.  One of my photographic goals is to document more of their interesting behavior.  On top of that list of photo wants are photos of willow ptarmigan in their snow burrows.  Ptarmigan use snow to help insulate them against the frigid winter temperatures of interior Alaska.  Their use of snow burrows can occur any time of the day but most common as they prepare to roost for the night.  Willow ptarmigan are cyclic and their numbers have been quite low over the past two or three winters.  But as Justin pointed out, they seem to be bouncing back. Continue reading →

SNOWSHOE HARE

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ON THE TRACK OF THE SNOWSHOE HARE
28-50-26_snowshoehareA snowshoe hare watches his backtrail.

In the far north snowshoe hares are trapped in an eternal cycle. A ten year cycle of life and death, of peak and crash, of  predator and prey. Currently snowshoes are at the bottom of their population cycle.  Predator species like the northern goshawk, northern hawk owl, and lynx crash a year or two after the hares.  When the hare population is low they can still be found in bunny patches, small pockets of prime habitat. Thickets of mixed forests, spruce, poplar and willow are sanctuaries where a few hares somehow manage to survive extremely heavy pressure from predators. In lodgepole forests of eastern Idaho, my old stompin grounds, the snowshoe hares did not seem to go through the extreme population peak and crash. Continue reading →