It seems like all I write about are birds of prey, but they’re the big, splashy birds of winter.  Most of the songbirds have left town so at my house we’re down to starlings, house sparrows, mourning doves, crows, pigeons and a variety of hawks.

Yesterday as I walked to work I saw two coopers hawks fly over, one right after the other.  They’re searching for food and hanging out at backyard feeders, as seen in this photo by Bill Parker. 

Coopers hawks aren’t at the feeders for the seeds.  They eat birds for a living, so they’re trying to catch an unsuspecting seed-eater.  Entire flocks fall silent when this hawk is near.  Starlings warn each other by making a high-pitched spitting sound.  Everyone ducks for cover. 

Coopers hawks are known to be jumpy and high strung.  Unlike red-tailed hawks, they are always on the move – and they move fast.  They can fly quickly through a forest and accurately catch prey with their talons. 

At my grocery store’s parking lot I once saw a coopers hawk cut a single pigeon out of the flock and grab it from behind in mid-air.  It was awe inspiring and it made me very glad I’m not something a coopers hawk wants to eat.

The resurgence of the bald eagle in western Pennsylvania is a beautiful thing.  Nothing confirms it so well as seeing our newest pair of eagles flying together at Moraine State Park in Butler County.  In the photos above, Chuck Tague caught them flying together in a blue sky on November 1 and Steve Gosser captured them building a nest on November 23.  They won’t be laying eggs any time soon but they are housekeeping.  It looks like this pair will make the lake their home.

As recently as 25 years ago it was almost impossible to find a bald eagle in Pennsylvania.  In 1980 there were only three nesting pairs in the entire state – all of them at Pymatuning.  Pesticides, especially DDT, accumulated in the eagles’ bodies and made their eggs crack and fail.  With no young eagles reaching adulthood, the population declined as the adults died off.  It didn’t help that water pollution during that era reduced fish populations, the eagle’s staple food.

In the mid-1980s the PA Game Commission conducted a bald eagle reintroduction program.  This year they counted at least 120 nesting pairs in the state.  What a great success! 

If you want to see these birds, drive the south shore loop of Moraine State Park (park office toward Pleasant Valley) and look for a large dark bird with white head and tail.  It helps to have binoculars and patience.  It’s a big lake and they could be anywhere.

17 November 2007

My husband started to rake leaves in our backyard at 4:15 this afternoon.  It began raining and the sun set before he finished so I put on a yellow rain slicker and went out in the dark to help him load the leaf bags.

By the time we were loading the second bag the rain was serious.  Bent over with my hood up I heard a trill like a cell phone.  I froze in place.  “He’s here!  But where?”

My husband isn’t a bird watcher but he knows that sound.  He paused too.  We were getting wetter by the minute and the call did not repeat.  My husband said, “Well, if he’s here, he’ll call again.”   Sure enough, he did.

Our eastern screech-owl is back.  We think of him as ours only because we listen for him and have seen him a few times.  In the winter he roosts in my neighbor’s spruce trees and hunts for critters beneath our bird feeders.  He usually begins calling in autumn and is quite vocal into January.   In early spring I once saw him perched on my neighbor’s telephone wire with his mate.

Tonight our owl decided to say something.  Perhaps he was commenting on how silly people can be, messing with wet leaves in the dark. Listen to the sound at this link.

Update Tues 11/20/2007:  Tonight the screech-owl gave the whinny call. Listen at this link.

14 November 2007

“Your bird is out there above the dumpsters.” That’s what Cliff, our maintenance man, tells me at least once a week at WQED Pittsburgh. 

Many people at work know that I’m interested in birds and at WQED the two most interesting birds are the pair of red-tailed hawks who’ve claimed the surrounding territory.  I am sure to hear when they’re nearby.

This pair has made themselves famous by hunting for rodents behind the dumpsters (good job!), for soaring together and mating on top of Central Catholic High School, for eating a rabbit in a tree outside our third floor windows, and for ignoring their loudly whining youngsters who are too old to be begging from mom and dad.

And they look just plain huge when perched.  

The red-tails have generated a lot of questions over the years.  Some of the answers are…   

• They live in the city because there’s enough to eat and they aren’t harassed in town. 
• They eat rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, mice, rats and pigeons.  I am especially glad they eat rats.
• They won’t try to eat something that will put up a fight because they can’t afford to get hurt while catching dinner.  They are very, very unlikely to attack a small dog or cat.
• Because they pounce on their prey from above, red-tails like to perch on tall dead trees.  To a red-tail, light posts on the Parkway look like tall dead trees.
• Yes, they have a nest somewhere near here but only in spring.  Their nest is the babies’ bed.  The adults don’t live in the nest themselves. 
• It is a sign of courtship when the male brings a dead chipmunk to his mate.
• They are ignoring that loud, whining hawk because he’s their kid.  He has to learn to hunt and if they feed him he will never learn.  He thinks begging will break their resolve. 
• If two red-tails are perched next to each other, they are either mates or parent and child.  Red-tails don’t make friends with other red-tails.

Today the red-tails were busy, busy.  Hunting.  A cold front is coming tonight and they had to eat today because they don’t know how long bad weather will last.  Better to face the storm with a full stomach.   In winter it’s a matter of life and death.

(photo by Chuck Tague)