Category Archives: Birds of Prey

Looking For Another Owl

Birds of Prey, Travel
Great gray owl at Sax-Zim Bog, Dec 2015 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

25 February 2025

After a month of excitement over Schenley Park’s great horned owls nest, I’m switching gears this week to find the owls I missed in Minnesota eleven years ago.

Back in 2014 I attended the Sax-Zim Bog birding festival during one of the coldest winters of the century. I had a wonderful time full of new experiences and Life Birds but I never saw my target bird, the great gray owl, so I’m going back this week with Frank Nicoletti as my guide to find one.

From the top of their heads to the tip of their tails great gray owls (Strix nebulosa) are the world’s largest owl by length with a wingspan up to 5 feet long.

Although it appears to be more massive than other owls of the northern forest, its actual body mass is at least 15% smaller than the more common Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus), with which it shares habitat. Thus its plumage makes up much of the bulk of the bird, allowing it to withstand the bitter cold of northern winters.

— Birds of the World: Great Gray Owl — emphasis added

This cross section of a taxidermied model at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen shows how small the bird’s body really is.

Cross sectioned taxidermied Great Grey Owl, Strix nebulosa, showing the extent of the body plumage, Zoological Museum, Copenhagen (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

To give you an idea of their size, here’s a video from the Owl Research Institute of banding an adult male great gray owl and his chicks in (probably) northern Montana in 2020. Note that the male is smaller than his mate.

video from May 2020, embedded from Daniel J Cox on YouTube

Perhaps I’ll only see one from a distance but you can tell by its shape that this is a great gray!

Great grey owl in Ontario (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

p.s. I checked my Life List again and discovered I’ve never seen a boreal owl (Aegolius funereus). Fingers crossed for both.

Schenley Park Outing to See the Owls, Sun 2 March, 9:30

Birds of Prey, Books & Events, Schenley Park
Mother owl with two owlets at Schenley Park nest, 19 Feb 2025 (photo by Dana Nesiti)

1 March UPDATE: Yes this outing is happening as planned and yes it will be COLD. Dress warmly. Here’s some news:

  • One of the owlets fell from the nest on Thursday 27 Feb and was rescued by Sarah Mateskovich & taken by WIN to Tamarack Wildlife Center where they determined it has only a minor beak injury. The rescued owlet may be fostered at another nest since this bridge nest is inaccessible for her return.
  • As of 28 February there were still 2 owlets in the nest, apparently there were 3 to begin with!

23 February 2025

You’ve been hearing about them. Now come see them!

Join me on a daytime great horned “owl prowl” in Schenley Park on Sunday 2 March 2025. Meet at 9:30am in front of the Schenley Park Visitor Center (40.438514, -79.946479). We’ll walk from there to the viewing area.

NOTE the time! 1 HOUR LATER THAN USUAL!     9:30AM

Dana Nesiti photographed two owlets in the nest on 19 February, above. Since this outing is 11 days after his photo I expect the owlets to be halfway to adult size.

Dress warmly in layers and wear comfortable WARM socks and boots. Bring binoculars, field guides and a scope if you have them. We probably will be standing still on frozen ground while we wait for the owls to move. This is a very cold activity so be prepared!

The outing will last 60+ minutes, depending on the weather.

And just to tantalize you, here’s what they looked like this morning

Great horned owls in Schenley Park: Mother and two owlets, Sunday 23 Feb 2025, 9:15am (photos by Kate St. John)

Great Horned Owlet is Growing Fast

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park
Great horned owl mother and owlet, Schenley Park, 15 Feb 2025 (photo by Dana Nesiti)

17 February 2025

It was overcast with misty rain when Dana Nesiti visited Schenley Park on Saturday 15 February to capture photos of the great horned owl’s nest. As you can see, the owlet is growing fast and starting to get facial disc feathers. (You can also see raindrops on the back of Dana’s camera, below.)

screenshot of a photo on Dana Nesiti’s camera, 15 February 2025 (photo by Dana Nesitt)
For comparison, here’s what the owlet looked like 4 days earlier on 11 February — all beak.
Great horned owl mother with downy white owlet perched in front of her, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Hoping for a good look at the owl family, Charity Kheshgi and I visited Schenley yesterday while it was sunny. Unfortunately the wind was so cold that the owlet hid beneath his mother’s belly feathers while her ear tufts flapped in the wind.

We did, however, find the father owl roosting in a tree on the opposite hillside — in the sun and out of the wind.

“Papa” great horned owl roosting, 17 Feb 2025 (digiscoped by Kate St. John)

Today it’s so cold that the owlet will be hiding. Next weekend’s above freezing temperatures will be a good time to check on his progress.

Eagle Egg at Irvin

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship
screenshot of USS Irvin Live bald eagle nest camera

16 February 2025

In case you missed it, the bald eagle pair at the US Steel Irvin nest welcomed their first egg of 2025 on Thursday afternoon 13 February. WTAE reports:

WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. — The bald eagles living at U.S. Steel’s Irvin Plant have welcomed their first egg of 2025.

Mother Stella laid the egg around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Stella joined Irvin in the nest after Claire left late last year. Irvin has lived at the nest for six seasons.

The egg could hatch in as little as 35 days and be the eighth eaglet born at the nest.

— WTAE: Bald eagles welcome first egg of 2025 at U.S. Steel Plant nest

This is happy news since nesting at Hays looks doubtful after months of disruption by several immature eagles. Though the breeding season could be salvaged at Hays by a strong driven pair, that type of pair bond has not developed yet this spring.

A similar though very short drama occurred last fall at USS Irvin resulting in a new couple with a strong bond: Stella and Irvin. Learn about their history in this video from KDKA.

video embedded from KDKA CBS Pittsburgh on YouTube

Watch them LIVE on the U.S. Steel Bald Eagle Nest Cam. Click here to tune in this morning (16 Feb) and see a very wet Stella on the nest. (Yes, it’s raining but it will change to snow.)

screenshot from the USS Irvin nest Live stream: Stella Incubating in the rain, 16 Feb 2025, 8am

Seen This Week: A Gull, 4 Merlins, and 60 Feet into Ohio

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park, Water and Shore, Weather & Sky
Ring-billed gull wondering if I brought food to Duck Hollow, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

15 February 2025

Welcome to Day Two of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). I’m staying indoors while it snows and rains so much that …

FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM EST THIS MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible.
— National Weather Service forecast for Pittsburgh PA 15 Feb 2025

Gull: Since most of the rain will fall south of here the Monongahela River will rise again. It was falling last Tuesday when I photographed one of the many ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow. This one seemed to be asking, “Do you have food for me?” Someone had left birdseed on the trash can cover.

4 Merlins: Yesterday I went to the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park half an hour before sunset to see if I could find the two merlins who usually hang out there. As soon as I arrived one flew in and landed on the highest pine in the Palmer Loop Practice Area north of Schenley Drive.

Merlin atop an evergreen, Schenley golf course, 14 Feb 2025, 5:22pm (photo by Kate St. John)
Zoomed cellphone photo: 1 of 4 merlins at Schenley golf course, 14 Feb 2025, 5:15-6:05pm (photo by Kate St. John)

Soon a second merlin landed on top of the tallest tree, a bare tree between holes 8 and 9. I walked a big circle to check for songbirds and saw the first merlin in an intense chase with a third. On my way back to the car I found a fourth(!) and was able to stand in one spot and see all four merlins at the same time.

Four is unusual but I remember a time, perhaps in the late 1990s, when Bill Hintze first found merlins at the golf course. In those days there were sometimes as many as four.

60 Feet into Ohio: On Monday 10 Feb four of us went birding on the Stavich Bike Trail in Lawrence County PA to do a Winter Survey for the Third PA Breeding Bird Atlas. We were ready to head back to the car when I realized we were only a half mile from Ohio. So we kept going, crossed the state line and walked 60 feet into Ohio.

Ta dah! Here we are just inside Pennsylvania. Best Bird: a white-crowned sparrow.

Birding with friends (Donna, Kate, Debbie, Linda) in PA at the Ohio state line, 10 Feb 2025 (photo by Donna Foyle)

Bonus Picture — great horned owlet: Here’s another owlet baby picture from Tues 11 Feb. The white fluff in front of the mother owl is the owlet’s head facing left with its eyes closed.

Great horned owl nest with mother and owlet, Schenley Park, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Owlet!

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park
Great horned owl on nest in Schenley Park, 1 Feb 2025 (digiscoped photo by Kate St. John)

11 February 2025

Remember this great horned owl nesting in Schenley Park? According to eBirder Andy Georgeson, she’s been incubating since at least 8 January.

[Great horned owl] continuing – I have now observed this owl on the old red tail hawk nest for the last 3 weeks. … This morning the owl was mobbed by 2 Ravens and displayed a defensive posture while in the nest before the Ravens flew off.

— eBird Checklist comment from Andy Georgeson, 29 Jan 2025, 7:30am

Last Sunday, 9 February, Dana Nesiti saw movement under her breast feathers and patiently waited until her owlet appeared. Can you see its little gray beak poking out under her white collar?

Great horned owl with chick, Schenley Park, 9 Feb 2025 (photo by Dana Nesiti)

Incubation for great-horned owls (Bubo virginianus) lasts 30-37 days, averaging 33 days. If this owlet hatched on Saturday 8 February, its egg was laid around 6 January. Andy Georgeson’s observation supports this timing, too.

Great horned owlets are in their nestling phase for 42 days. This one will probably walk off the nest (called “branching”) on or around 22 March.

We’re going to have 6 weeks of Superb Owlet(s)!

UPDATE at noon on 11 February: Charity Kheshgi and I visited Schenley Park this morning to see the owls, best viewed in the vicinity of the stone bench here. I was lucky to digiscope a photo of the chick.

Great horned owl with sleeping owlet (center of photo) and stored food (on left side of nest), Schenley Park, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

The owlet is the white fluff closest to his mother in the center of the photo. The other white stuff is the remains of a rabbit on top of the twigs at the left.

If you can’t discern the owlet above, here’s the same photo flipped so that the chick’s sleeping face is in the normal upright position. Ignore everything in this marked up photo except the area inside the yellow circle. Notice that the owlet’s white head, dark eye (closed), and beak are peeking out to the right of the nest twigs.

Marked up photo of owlet in great horned owl’s nest, 11 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

Plucky Crows Harass Bald Eagles

Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey, Crows & Ravens
Crow pulls the tail of an immature bald eagle, Delta, BC, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 February 2025

Bald eagles are top predators who will eat crow nestlings, fledglings and unwary adults if the opportunity arises, so crows learn from a very young age to watch out for eagles.

Even in the nest young crows hear and see their parents drive off hawks and eagles. In their first year of life, which they spend with their parents, they learn the rules of harassment.

  • When a lone crow sees an avian predator he perches prominently and calls for reinforcements.
  • When his buddies arrive the crows work as a mob to drive away the predator.
Crows mobbing a bald eagle in Bremerton, WA (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
American crows harassing a bald eagle in Alaska (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
  • When the situation is acute and the mob is left behind, a solo crow may harass an eagle even though he’s the only one left. Sometimes he does something daring.

Ten years ago photographer Phoo Chan went to the shore at Seabeck, Washington to photograph the bald eagles who arrive in large number during the midshipman fish run (Porichthys sp). He was very lucky to capture photos of a lone crow riding on an eagle’s back. See more in his article below.

The Story Behind the Photo of a Crow Riding an Eagle – Part 2

Crows keep the world safe for crows. 😉

Seen in Past Week: Gulls, Owls and Bonus Birds

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Peregrines, Schenley Park, Water and Shore
Immature herring gull on ice shouts at his friends, Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

3 February 2025

In the past week I’ve been lucky to see gulls on ice, an owl on the nest, and three Bonus Birds.

Tiny icebergs were floating down the Monongahela River when Charity Kheshgi and I visited Duck Hollow on 28 January.

Ring-billed gulls on ice at Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Ring-billed gulls outnumbered every other species. A few immature herring gulls made a ruckus in the middle of the river. And a Bonus Bird: A peregrine falcon flew over. I wonder who it is!

Peregrine falcon flyover, Duck Hollow, 28 Jan 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

On 1 February I visited Schenley golf course to take a photo of my shadow and decided to drive down Circuit Road on the way home. The sun was so bright that it illuminated the great horned owl’s nest under the Panther Hollow Bridge. From the road I digiscoped a photo of the female and cropped it for a closer look.

Digiscoped photo of nesting great horned owl at Schenley, 1 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Heavily cropped digiscoped photo of nesting great horned owl, 1 Feb 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

Yesterday I went back with Charity Kheshgi to see the owls. The captions on her video and photos tell the story.

video of great horned owl on nest, Schenley, 2 Feb 2025, by Charity Kheshgi

We were able to see both the male on the left and the female on the nest from a trail on the same level as the nest (the “Lower Trail”).

Great horned owl pair male roosting (left), female on nest, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Below the bridge we couldn’t see the nest but the male was visible, roosting in the shadows.

Great horned owl male roosting near his mate, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

And later, two Bonus Birds: A golden-crowned kinglet who flashed his crown, yellow and red …

Golden-crowned kinglet, Schenley Park, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

… and a brown creeper

Brown creeper, Schenley Park, 2 Feb 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Great Horned Owls Already on Eggs

Birds of Prey, Nesting & Courtship, Schenley Park
Great horned owl on nest, Merritt Island, Florida, January 2011 (photo by Chuck Tague)

30 January 2025

Great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) are the first birds to nest in Pennsylvania each year(*). They start courting in late fall and become really intense in December when you often hear them hooting in the woods and suburbs.  By January or February they’ve chosen a nest site and the female lays her eggs.

Since great horned owls never build a nest they often take over an old red-tailed hawk nest and that’s what they did at this bridge in Oakland. Ankur and Wenting saw the pair last Sunday 26 January.

The female owl is the only one who incubates, so she’s on the nest in the photo. Look closely behind and above her and you will see her mate perched on a horizontal girder. He feeds her at night and roosts near her during the day.

According to eBirder Andy Georgeson, this female has been on the nest since around 8 January:

[Great horned owl] continuing – I have now observed this owl on the old red tail hawk nest for the last 3 weeks. … This morning the owl was mobbed by 2 Ravens and displayed a defensive posture while in the nest before the Ravens flew off.

— eBird Checklist comment from Andy Georgeson, 29 Jan 2025, 7:30am

Look at old red-tailed hawk nests near you for some ear tufts sticking up. If you see them, don’t get too close!  You don’t want to tangle with Mama owl!

Great horned owl on nest in March 2020 (photo by Steve Gosser)

p.s. The nest pictured at top is an old osprey nest in Florida, claimed by a great horned owl.

(*)First to nest: Pigeons nest all year long in Pennsylvania. They never have an off season.

Snowy Owl? Or Plastic Bag?

Birds of Prey, Musings & News
Is that a snowy owl? Franklin County, PA 12 Jan 2014 (photo by Nancy Magnusson via Flickr Creative Commons license)

23 January 2025

Those who ventured out in this week’s bitter cold hoped to see birds from the far north who had just arrived on the wind. The typical way to find them is to drive past frozen fields watching for movement and scanning for anything that looks like a bird.

What’s that white lump in the field? Is it a snowy owl? Or a plastic bag?

Eleven years ago the winter of 2013-2014 was extremely cold and there was a huge irruption of snowy owls in the Northeast and Great Lakes. People photographed all of them, even the distant ones, to document them in eBird.

At top: Is that a plastic bag on that patch of snow? Below: Are there plastic bags or snowy owls in this photo? And how many?

Where’s the snowy owl? There are 3 in Jackson County, MI on 26 Dec 2013 (photo by Don Henise via Flickr Creative Commons license)

Is there a snowy owl in this picture?

Where’s the snowy owl in this picture? West Dennis Beach, Cape Cod, 17 Jan 2014 (photo by On The Wander via Flickr Creative Commons license)

Answer: All three photos have a snowy owls in them. The middle photo has 3 along the ridge top.

This winter we have not seen a big influx of snowy owls into Pennsylvania though there have been a couple of sightings.

screenshot of snowy owl sightings in the northeastern US in Jan 2025 (eBird species map as of 23 Jan 2025)

Recently there’s a snowy owl near Grantsville, Maryland which is often photographed from afar. A white lump?

If you’ve ever looked for a snowy owl and found a plastic bag you’ll enjoy the story and photos at The Search for Snowy Owls by Friends of the Fox River in Elgin, Illinois.