Janesville Rock River Eagle, the Hot Air Balloon, Lots of Geese, Mystery Waterfowl and Phoenix Flies Through the Rainbow

One of the Janesville Rock River Bald Eagles in one of their favorite trees. Unfortunately the light is dim and the air dense.


When I come to look for the eagles, as I turn into the boat landing I always look for a lump in the far tree that is the tallest. It is directly across from the landing on the intersection of a feeder stream and the Rock. Can you see the lump in the top right of the tree. By the way, Eagle is currently being bombed by, I think, Starlings.

The Canada Geese on my side are flying around manically honking. I look behind me.

Good grief, there is a hot air balloon landing over there.


The geese do another round and then must decide the balloon is no big deal and go back to their river business.

Eagle on the other hand is still keeping an eye on the balloon area, but doesn't look the least like she wants to fly off.

This is when the weird waterfowl comes past. Something about it's head, or profile, or long bright beak made me think of a Cormorant, but some how the rest of it doesn't seem to fit.

The creature is smaller than a Canada Goose and a good bit bigger than a mallard. It's beak is red or orange and there is a white patch around the bill. Any suggestions?

As the next photo is of Mallards one might think Eagle was looking at them. Nope. Eagle was looking at the mystery fowl above. The ducks came by 10 minutes later.

She may have looked at the Mallards as well, but just about that time I noticed a gentleman on the other side of the boat landing looking at the lump in the tree himself. I asked if he was looking at the eagle, which he was, so I asked if he'd like to look through the scope. Then I noticed his pair of compact binoculars. It turns out Bill is a bicycler and a birder so he had many helpful things to share with me.

We've chatting along when suddenly Eagle decides to to take off.

By the way, see those houses? See eagle heading out that way? She then heads along the river. On the other side of those houses is Main Street in Janesville. It's quite amazing that all this action is occurring in a downtown area.

A few minutes later, a big bird comes from the south. What is the eagle back? Oh no, this looks more like a pterodactyl. Bill had mentioned that there was a Great Blue Heron around and I believe that's what we've got. A pterodactyl would likely be too much to ask for. Besides a Great Blue is extremely cool.

Those massive wings keep flapping.

and flapping,

and flapping.

And then suddenly there is no one. No Eagle, no Heron, no ducks--and soon no me either as my feet won't take waiting to see if anyone comes back to roost in the eagle tree.

From Chicagoan Ken Zommer, who has been keeping up with the status of Phoenix the Red-tail, sad news--

Chicago Sun Times 2/18/10
Bye-bye birdie . . .
Feather duster: The perched red-tailed hawk named "Phoenix," burned by a fireball caused by a Sugar Grove plane crash in late January -- was euthanized last week. The bird was triaged by Dawn Keller, founder of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, who had been optimistic about a full recovery, but the bird had respiratory complications from inhaling fumes.

Rose and Immature Red-tail vs the New York Botanical Great Horned Owls plus More on the Mystery Nest

Female Great Horned Owl of the NYBG
I received an email today from Carol Capobianco, the Editorial Content Manager at the New York Botanical Garden--

Debbie Becker, who leads bird walks here at The New York Botanical Garden, witnessed a face off between two red-tailed hawks and the great horned owl who is nesting in the Forest. She blogs about it on today’s Plant Talk.
http://www.nybg.org/wordpress/?p=5343

The Red-tails in question were Rose, former mate of Hawkeye of Fordham and the Library NYBG nests. And the Great Horned Owls were those who have nested in the NYBG for some years. The male in particular, I understand has been there at least a decade if not longer.

Male Great Horned Owl of the NYBG
It is interesting that though we try to observe this sort of possible life and death situation in an unbiased manner , the folks at the NYBG were definitely on the side of the owls and we, who have watched Rose raise her families for some years cannot help but fear for the Red-tailed Hawks.

Do read the first hand account at the link above and as I thought there might be some inconsistencies with my knowledge at that possibly espoused by the writer, I contacted John Blakeman for some of his experienced advice.

I don't see the interaction as a form of pack hunting but more in the vein of the typical double defense often seen in Red-tailed Hawks when they feel endangered. In this case it looked to me like a preventative strike. The Red-tails might well have reason to fear the Great Horned Owls.

I have read of incidents in which Great Horned Owls will predate the nest of Red-tailed Hawks and have the eyasses for a midnight snack if possible. They being nocturnal. A couple of years ago, a Red-tailed Hawk was found dead in the garden and the thought was he had been killed by the GHOs.

In researching this issue, I found one entry in which it said that Red-tails will also predate the young of GHO nests. Personally I'd think there were easier meals to forage for but perhaps that was also a preventative strike as might be the predation of RTH nests by GHOs.

As far as I can tell neither act is all that common, though there was more information on the GHO's being the predators available which would lead me to believe that as humans are less likely to be watching at night, and humans are reporting the events, that the predating of young Red-tails is more common act.

Ms. Becker feared that Rose and her immature friend were more dangerous to the Owls than the other way around because they had stronger beaks than did the Great Horned Owls. But as we know Red-tailed Hawks rarely use their beaks in attack, it is the talons that do the work. And as it turns out, the talons of a Great Horned Owl are far more dangerous than those of a Red-tailed Hawk.

I read a report concerning just this thing. Red-tailed Hawks rarely if ever go after house cats, they just haven't the strength in their feet to make successful kills whereas Great Horned Owls appear to have no trouble at all in removing tabbies from the landscape.

Ms. Becker and her fellow birdwatchers eventually disrupted the interaction for fear of the Owls being hurt. Perhaps Rose had concrete reasons for her preventative strike in that there had been forays from the owls during the night when humans weren't observing the interaction, I don't know. Or if the immature bird with her was not one of the previous year's young, but rather a very young mate (Pale Male first mated as a brown-tail), she might well fear that her mate was not yet up to doing his full share during a night raid, she felt it necessary to do a day raid to protect her future young.

On the other hand, a female owl sitting eggs makes a reasonably easy target if she is sitting tight and the male is not at hand to help in her defense, but in this case he was at hand

Of course the whole thing could also be put down to a display of strength on the RTHs part to let the owls know they just weren't a couple of push overs and that detente should be the order of the day.

Time may tell us just what they were hoping to accomplish. I'm hoping it was detente for everyone's sake, the birds and the humans who watch them included.

Re: The nest found near the Rock River in Beloit, WI featured on a previous blog.


Courtesy of http://www.illinoisraptorcenter.org/diaryphotoalbum6.html
And example of a Baltimore Oriole nest--it appears to be more of a drawstring like purse shape.


Whereas the Orchard Oriole nest appears to be rounded with a wider opening at the top. I saw some examples in which the nest actually rested in the crouch of several twigs.



Donegal Browne

Eagle Search, Angry Geese, and Mystery Scaups

On Wednesday morning I missed a call alerting me that there were a pair of mature Bald Eagles on the ice of the Rock River off a park in Beloit. A town about thirty minutes away. By the time I got the call, got directions, got lost, very lost, several times, this is what I saw when I arrived. You'll note there are no eagles in the picture.

Feeling downright incompetent I stood there scanning, scanning, scanning the trees when suddenly I heard a tremendous din of Canada Geese honking.

With one goose in the lead, there are five in a group bringing up the rear. Are the five just slow or is number one very fast or is number one in some kind of goose trouble?

Looking at the fact that the Five, who are honking their brains out, all have their necks craned to keep One in view, and their feet swinging, I'm hypothesizing that One is in some kind of trouble.

They may see him but I don't. Don't see any eagles either for that matter I look up and down the shoreline looking for big white heads.

Wait a minute where did all the geese go?

I look up and see three tails. They have circled but where is the alleged culprit and two of the original five?

The three circle back yet again but this time there is no honking and then they too fly beyond the shoreline and disappear.

Well, I don't really know what just happened but now I'll know to look for it again and perhaps the next time...

No big birds anywhere; the air is crisp and all is quiet.
Perhaps tomorrow....

It is now tomorrow, Thursday and I'm standing in the yard of a museum. When I look down in the snow, I see some very odd tracks. They are windblown so their shapes have softened. Of course!

I've not seen them before but these are of course the tracks of webbed feet. They're too small for geese. Ducks must have come up to forage for grass and goodies in the bare spots.

I look across toward the river and there indeed is a---What? A scaup perhaps? The head has a dull greenish cast to it which might make it a Greater Scaup, Axthya marila. But I understand that head color isn't always reliable, so lets just call him a scaup for the moment. But I'm more interested in why is he here and...

...everyone else is over there? Wait a minute there is also a lone scaup on the other side of the group too. Look carefully for the speck some feet in front of where the dock meets the shore. See him?

I'm loosing the light but you can see the white patch near the bill, that would make those particular birds females of the group.

You know what? I think many of these ducks may have been napping when I originally showed up. There are still a couple with their heads tucked.

And here is the lone scaup on the far side of the flock. His head doesn't appear greenish at all it could even be considered a bit purplish, which would mean he'd likely be a Lesser Scaup.

But the question I find much more interesting is whether scaups have sentinels that remain alert while the others get some sleep.

Now having even more questions about water fowl than when I started which isn’t such a bad thing really, questions are always good, but feeling rather raptor-less, I opened the comments from the blog and guess what? There was an update from “Beakerless” of Janesville from 11am Wednesday saying—

I just saw a mature bald eagle following the river toward downtown Janesville. It was flying low over the Racine St Bridge.

It appears that while I was being lost in Beloit looking for Bald Eagles and not finding them, possibly Rock or Jane from the Janesville Rock River pair was hunting much closer to home.

Donegal Browne