Know Your Trees or Else: Culprit "my" Cooper's Hawk Returns and Another Look at the Albany Eagle Nest

I was in the driveway preparing  go see what raptors I might be able to spot in the next hour or so before dark when...wait a minute that tree doesn't look right.  There is an unusual lump on that branch.  See it in the center of the photograph?

Now you might or might not see the lump.  After all it isn't your tree but as it turns out it is important to know your trees when looking for the Culprit.

There he is.  Once again though the feeders are full the only creatures who seem to be enjoying them for the last couple of days are the squirrels.

Culprit who does his best to predate my feeders is used to seeing people in the driveway doing things with cars and therefore isn't even paying me the least attention as he is riveted to the bird feeder. 

When he does realize that I'm looking at him, he attempts to melt further into a branch.

When he realizes I'm not going to quit looking at him and he's not sure whether the camera may be a dangerous "thing" he takes off for the other side of the house...where the other feeder is.

I'm not sure what happened over there, but I don't have to go track him down because within a minute or so he races back to my side of the house and keeps on going.  Excellent.  I'll have time to check out some nests before the day is completely over as it is just about time for the Bald Eagles to lay eggs around here. 

Red-tails are a little later ordinarily.  Their nests are next on the to do list.

The Albany Eagle Nest.  Another nest that is at least a quarter mile from the road.  Though later in the season I'll be able to use the farm lane to get a bit closer.  It looks like there may be an eagle up there.  

Time for more magnification and a plea for a little less cloud cover.

Yes!  There is an eagle doing something on the nest.

The distance is far and  the light is bad but there he is.  And what he is doing is looking at me.

Or is it she?  Her head looks bigger in this shot.  At any rate she is looking away and about half a mile in the direction in which she is looking is the Albany dam with it's open water.  Her mate might well be there fishing or hunting ducks.   Or perhaps he's over there hunting squirrels.  

As it turns out,  Eagles in Wisconsin also eat great numbers of squirrels.

Ten minutes later she is still looking in the same direction.  Then while I'm getting a smear off the lens she takes off to the right and disappears into the trees.  Well.

That's when the sun decides to come out from under the clouds.
I can't help but giggle.

I wait.

I watch a camera shy raccoon scuttle into a dip in the field.

And as eagles come and go from the nest during the night, they may just wait until I'm gone to come back.  I  checked with a watcher at another nest.  They don't expect eggs for another week or so and I don't think there are any up in this one yet either.  Definitely time to get them used to seeing me around though.

Time to go home before I'm benighted.  Tomorrow is another day.

Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne

The Indian Ford Eagles, Crows, a Red-tailed Hawk and the Sheepskin Pond Nest Gets an Update.

 Sunday at Indian Ford and Slick the male stares at a pair of crows walking across the ice.

And here are the Crows walking on the ice, there is  a third in a tree of course doing sentinel duty.  They appear to be foraging and not the least concerned about Slick who appears to be staring intently at them.  Come to think of it why aren't they mobbing him like they do Red-tailed Hawks?

A few minutes later Slick looks upstream with what appears to be interest.  Not knowing eagles deeply yet it is a bit difficult to tell definitely when an Eagle is utterly interested unless he or she leans.  Then the cawing starts upstream and can't see anyone.  I look downstream and the ice crows are no longer there.  I point the camera upstream approximately where I think the sound is coming from and click.

When I got home I downloaded the shot I took during the cawing episode in which I couldn't see who was being mobbed and maximized the picture..  And there she was, a Red-tailed Hawk that had been drawn to the area where I was told earlier was a mystery carcass down on the ice.

So we are back to the question, why do Crows mob Red-tailed Hawks and appear to utterly ignore Bald Eagles?  Perhaps something to do with food preference? 

 I'm open to suggestions.

 While I'm looking at the Crows upstream Slick disappears.

 

Before long I see a pair of extremely big wings on a large Bald Eagle, (Mrs. Slick?) riding the air currents  upstream toward where the Crows and Red-tail had been.  Currently there is no cawing.  In fact when it came to predators, or even Crows,  I didn't see one in sight just the geese and waterfowl.

The do tend to disappear in the middle of the day so I decide it is time to go see the how the Edgerton Eagles are doing. Besides I can no longer feel my fingers so some time in a heated car wouldn't be remiss. 

 Remember we monitored them a couple of years ago?  They were the pair with the nest that was quite difficult to get at all close to.   They had the nest  near Sheepskin Pond where the pelicans put in during migration.

I got a little lost as I'd not been here for some time but after a little backtracking I looked at the skyline and woooo hoooo, there they were and YES!, both Eagles were perched above the nest at least a quarter mile away but still visible.

 

I pulled in to the power station which in winter appears to have a snowmobile track that runs past it to the middle of the field and then the track turns and bisects the field.  It is the first time in my life I wouldn't have minded access to a snowmobile.  A slow snowmobile, a snowmobile with a muffler and a lot less varoom varoom to it.  But after setting up some magnification the pictures aren't stellar but you can see what they are up to at any rate. There is quite a bit of sexual dimorphism going on when it comes to these two.  Handy to figure out which nesting chores are done by males and which females as I really don't know when it comes to Eagles.

Mr. Eagle makes his way into the bowl of the nest and appears to be doing a little upkeep and renovation.  Then he flies off the nest into the tree line.

He isn't gone long before he comes roaring back to the nest again at top speed and gets back into the bowl.  I couldn't see if he had a remodeling twig with him but I'm betting he did.  He does something for awhile in the bowl and then climbs back up with the Mrs.

Then they both stare at me.  I suspect it is because I'm the only one not roaring by on a snowmobile so I stick out as suspect.  It's below zero out here and my fingers are becoming quite excruciatingly painful.   Perhaps only a small dose of a suspect human might be the way to go today.   

I wonder if the female eagle does any nest building at all?   A question to be perhaps answered on the next visit.

It is good to have a plan.
Happy Hawking!

Slick the Bald Eagle Uses a Telephone Pole and a Wing to Make A Hairpin Turn

11:27:13 AM  This morning, Patty, one of the one of the Eagle watching waitresses from the Edgewater Inn, a little breakfast and lunch place in Indian Ford, Wisconsin and  nearly on top of the dam on the Rock River, called to tell me one of the Eagles was in residence.   And there he is!

  11:27:13AM  I haven't gone closer this is a cropped photograph.  Is this a male?  I think it is.

11:27:19AM  He looks around with a glare.  DRAT!  I start to walk laterally away from him toward the dam.  He looks away for a few moments and looks back again.   I slowly try to get further away by going to the left and not raising my camera.  But I suspect now he was wondering why I was being so furtive though I was only trying to look nonthreatening.  Perhaps a fishing rod would have helped me blend in.  At any rate...

11:33:54 AM  He's off and across the river in no time.

 11:33:55 AM  One second later.

11:33:56 AM

11:33:57 AM

11:33:58 AM

11:33:58 AM   Mr. Eagle is just about to do something quite spectacular that I'd never seen before nor imagined.  I didn't realize what he had done in the moment while I was  there but only saw the move in the photographs just now.

 11:34:00 AM  He flies so close to the pole  that he can brush his right wing against it.  Not only slowing himself so that I loose focus,  but giving himself the ability to do a  turn, front to back, on the spot in no time at all. 

Absolutely stunning!  I can't tell you how excited I am to see this move!!!

11:34:02 AM  See?  There he goes back the same direction  he has just come from.  No muss, no fuss, no wasted time.

I saw Pale Male Jr., a Red-tailed hawk, who was much smaller than this bird with his 6 to 7 foot wingspan,  do an instant front to back turn in midair in a pigeon hunting maneuver. I have no photograph or video to slow down the action to see exactly how he did it, but he did it without aid of any surface and he did it in the blink of an eye.  I've never even seen a female Red-tail do it, let alone a full sized male eagle, but this guy is slick.  He gained the absolute same advantage that Junior had by using the pole.

Does that make Eagles tool users?

  Eagles ordinarily go back the way they came by curving in flight.  That takes time.  Which is of course dangerous if there is jeopardy.

11:34:03 AM  Then one second later he has made me loose my focus again by not only dropping down very  rapidly but he is now no longer backed by the bright sky but rather a dark screen of trees.  Very Slick.

I do believe we have found his name.  Slick the Bald Eagle.

11:34:05 AM  He is still reducing his altitude.

11:34:06 AM  Here is an uncropped photo of Slick's progress.  Keep in mind I'm using a long lens so the naked eye isn't even up to seeing this much.

11:34:07 AM  See him mid-frame against the snow?

11:34:08 AM  Now can you see him?  

Our little buddy Slick immediately upon reaching the darker back drop of the pines flew steeply up.

Here is a crop of the same image.  There he is.

11:34:09 AM  Now where is he? 

Here is a crop of the above photo.  Not that easy to see even when I pinpoint him.

11:34:10 AM  Where is he?

11:34:11 AM  And now?  Then I loose him completely. 

 Just beyond the red house on the right is a big curve in the river with a tall forested bank.

I scan slowly right.

11:38:24 AM Even with his white head and tail it took me almost five minutes to find him.

11:38:26 AM  Here is a crop. I realize that I am likely anthropomorphizing but does he look rather self satisfied to you?  

Note it has begun to snow.  You can see snowflakes against his dark back. 

11: 39:46 AM  While I'm scanning to see if  his mate is around.  Our little buddy Slick decides to move.  Their vision is at least 6 times better than ours so he can see if my eyes are looking at him even from this distance.

11:39:48 AM  He lands.

11:40:00 AM  It's not over yet.  He is still watching me.

11:40:40 AM  I stare at Slick and then I look at the Canada Goose.

11:40:49 AM  Then I look at these guys and think about them napping in the frigid water.  Then I cringe. DRAT! I've looked away too long.  It was less than a minute, but I know it was too long.

11:41:02 AM  Yes, indeedie.  Slick is absolutely nowhere in sight.  I pull out the binoculars to see if that helps.  I sweep the bank.  I check the island where he had been originally perched when I arrived.  I check the favorite tree  across the river with the squirrel dray.    I sweep the bank where he was seen last perched.   Nothing.

11:58:13 AM  It is snowing in true earnest. To the right is the bank where Slick was last seen.

11:58:18 AM  The Island on the left is the spot where I first spotted Slick.  This is a totally crazy snowstorm. Unbelievable.  When I got here there wasn't even a hint that it would snow.  The whole experience only too 31 minutes from the  time I arrived and look at it now.  I am extremely glad I'm only a few feet from shelter instead of deep in the woods.

 Welcome to Wisconsin.


I battle the snow over to the Riverside Inn.  I need to thank their eagle watching waitress Patty for texting me that Slick was in residence this morning.  Can't wait to tell her about Slick's telephone pole turn around.

Happy Hawking and Eagle-ing too!

Donegal Browne