VULTURES HERE, VULTURES THERE-IS THERE A SYSTEM? AND WHAT ABOUT THAT DEER?

All Photographs by Donna Johnson

Oklahoma's Donna Johnson was on her way home. She looked over and there was a downright horde of vultures on the side of the road. And like a good raptor watcher, she pulled over, grabbed her camera, jumped out, and started clicking away. And am I glad she did.

My first thought when I saw the bonanza of photographs was, "What kind of vultures do they have in Oklahoma?"

I zoomed in on a vulture with a black face. Black Vulture? There is some red underneath and young Turkey Vultures do have blackish faces. Next. Look at the legs. Are they reddish or pale? Definitely pale legs and a stubby tail. That makes this bird a Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus.

This is a seminal event! We've never had Black Vultures on the blog before.

My second thought? What might all these vultures be up to?

The group on the left is making a meal of a road killed deer. And the two on the right look like they'd like to join the party. In fact the bird on the far right looks prepared to make an issue if anyone tries to stop him from crashing the event. Or is he about to stop the bird in front of him that appears to be thinking about approaching the deer?

Over on the next rise, a group of five looks on. Wait the one on the left looks to be walking forward. Why is there trepidation about joining in. Different family group? Different species? Lower on the pecking order?

The bird second from the left has a pinkish face and a longer tail. Is that a Turkey Vulture? No. Pale legs.

What happened? There are now far fewer birds at the carcass. The two largest vultures, one standing in front of the carcass and the second stepping out towards something, are on alert.

Another group arrives at the carcass. And the posturing bird to the right looks extremely serious and downright grumpy about something.

Now we get a shot of the vulture in front of the mound looking on.

I'm not sure where these 18 vultures are geographically to the carcass but they just seem to be standing around. Have they already eaten or are they waiting their turn?

Back to the vulture in front of the mound, that overlooks the feeding area.

Okay, I get it now. Mound Vulture must be the sentinel so that the birds heavily absorbed in eating aren't taken by surprise.

Here is a different angle. What is happening to the left of the carcass?

Perhaps a portion has been removed and the two birds on the left nearest the carcass are pulling at it?

See the irregular chunk of wood to the right? The line of vultures are on the rise beyond the eating area. Maybe they are waiting their turn.

Yes, I think they are in line for the buffet. Perhaps the Mound Vulture is not only a sentinel but also the Seating Captain and the big guys down by the deer are the Bouncers. There may be more of an organized system than I ever suspected. But then again, I've never had the opportunity to watch a horde of Black Vultures.

Many thanks to Donna Johnson!

Donegal Browne

Francois' Thompkins Square Red-tailed Hawk and Monday's Miscellany of Mysteries

Photograph by Francois Portmann www.fotoportmann.com
Neighbors had reported sightings of a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk in Thompkins Square Park. Saturday photographer and hawkwatcher Francois Portmann caught this wonderful hawk vs squirrel sequence.

Photo by Francois Portmann
She sees something.

Photo by Francois Portmann
Lands. Keeps her focus.

Photo by Francois Portmann

Young hawk goes for the squirrel. And typically the squirrel escapes the hawk by going to the other side of the branch.

Photo by Francois Portmann

And my favorite squirrel tactic, she hangs from the bottom of the branch directly under the hawk.

Photo by Francois Portmann

Young hawk, having likely experienced all this before, flies to a perch to wait.

If there are two cooperating hawks, they can hunt a squirrel in a tree with a reasonable expectation of success.

It's quite difficult for a single hawk working alone, though not completely impossible if the squirrel is inattentive, to catch one. The single hawk's best tactic is to sit quietly until the squirrel, hawk hopes, forgets about him, goes down the tree, and begins to scamper on the ground. Snap! Squirrel lunch.

Francois reports that while this juvenile was perched, another juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flew by flushing all the pigeons in the park, while Hawk One called from her perch.

PLUS--Hawkwatcher and bloggist Rob Schmunk caught Isolde and Norman in Morningside Park within sight of the Cathedral Nest roosting in the same tree. Check it out-- http://bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com/

Adding to the need-for-calcium conversation, Squirrel rehabber Carol Vinzant, wrote this comment--

City squirrels can also develop a calcium deficiency. especially if they get too much people food. In the wild they'll gnaw on the bones of dead animals in the forest. I guess that's one downside to city living.

After reading Carol's comment, I looked into the Grey Squirrel's need for Calcium and found that bird mineral blocks, because the Calcium/Phosphorus levels are proper for both kinds of creatures, can be given to squirrels. I got one of Quicksilver's stock of mineral blocks, went out, and wired it up for the squirrels. By the time I got up this morning there was nothing left of the block but a bit of powder in the snow. Guess they liked it. Perhaps a mineral block might make a nice Christmas gift for your local squirrels.

Pyewackit the Cat alerted me to the two bunnies eating seed in the feeding area in the middle of the night. One mystery about the rabbits, is that even though I can follow their tracks, I've yet to be able to find their holes due to the sheer number of overlapping tracks.

(For perspective the duck is a foot high.)

A few feet from the feeding area, some small creature has created an opening in it's tunnel in the snow for easy access. No sight of the little creature as yet.

Peer inside and you can see the tunnel is under the snow but above the grass.

Yes folks, the crows yet again have stolen Blossom's charcoal briquette eyes. Notice they left her charcoal briquette nose attached. Why? Are they sitting around a nice warm charcoal fire singing bawdy crow songs and telling dirty crow jokes? But then why didn't they steal her nose?

As per usual, I marched out and gave Blossom a couple of new "eyes". Why? Because it's boring out there if you can't see!

Later? No eyes on Blossom again but I found them lying at the base of Blossom's tuffit. Guess what? Now her nose was missing. (I can tell it was her nose that was missing because it had a glaze of ice on it. See photo one up.)

I'm beginning to think the crows are just messing with me.

Donegal Browne

MORE FROM JOHN BLAKEMAN ON BEAKS AND THE BATTLE OF THE BOWL

2006- Cathedral Nest Fledgling looks coy; good beak view too.

First a mini-recap, yesterday Roe, who is a falconer, suggested that perhaps urban hawk beaks might be more fragile than their rural counterparts due to a lack of calcium in a diet weighted toward pigeons.

2006-The same hawk if a slightly different view of her beak.

I forwarded Roe's comment onto John Blakeman for his take and here it is.

Donna,

Doubtless, dietary calcium is crucial for raptor health. Captive-bred eyasses, as with wild-bred young hawks, can easily have soft bones and deformed bones when raised on a diet of pure, bone-deficient flesh, whether that of pigeons or any other animal. Hawks, both in the eyass (baby) and adult stages of life need ample calcium.

But NYC Red-tailed Hawks are not calcium deficient by eating pigeons. First, there is a moderate amount of bioavailable calcium in the blood and flesh of such prey. More significantly, the hawk will ingest a good number of small pigeon bones, including ribs and other bones of the torso. The head is often cleanly plucked off and eaten in a single gulp, thereby ingesting all of the cranial bones.

Lastly, there is little calcium in the hawk's beak. It is not bony. It is composed of keratin, the same material as the bird's talons. It is horny protein, not a calcium salt; very much like our fingernails, but harder and denser.

Like our fingernails, the beak continues to grow out and downward. It naturally wears down, or is even deliberately worn down by the bird. The beaks of hawks in captivity often over-grow, with the hook or vertical portion growing too long. This never happens in wild raptors, but is common with those in captivity, whether in a falconer's mews, a rehabilitator's cage, or in a zoo, for the following reasons.

Those who closely watch Red-tailed Hawks feed in the wild will almost always observe that immediately after consuming a meal, the birds leans over and quickly strokes their beaks back and forth on their perch. This curious behavior, in falconry parlance called "feaking," does two things. It helps wipe off blood and flesh from the beak after the sometimes gory meal. It also microscopically helps shape the beak. In captivity, where birds often don't sit on hard woody surfaces, feaking takes place on soft perches. With these, insufficient microscopic keratin layers are feaked off, and after a few months, the bill get too long and thick.

There is a third factor in keeping the bill properly shaped, at the right length. Same for the talons.

For a long time falconers wondered why their birds, even when they feaked on hard, rough surfaces such as rock, still tended to get beaks too long. They also noticed that talons tended to get too thick and dull. As part of the required falconry apprenticeship, new falconers have to learn how to "cope," trim, overgrown talons and beaks. It's not a difficult skill, but one that should be observed before attempting it on a captive hawk -- a mistake I made in college, where I clipped off a millimeter too much of a Red-tail's beak. It bled for a few minutes. Lesson learned (falconry was not legal or practiced in Ohio then, so I was unfortunately on my own on this, with my captive research hawks).

So, for centuries falconers have been coping the beaks and talons of their birds, with good effect. It's little different from the work farriers do in trimming and applying shoes to captive horses.

But in recent years, American falconers have noticed that Red-tails kept in open cages, properly called "weathering areas," where the birds get exposed to rain in the manner of free-flying hawks, tend to retain sharp talons and properly-sized beaks. It is now very clear that incidental wetting, from rains or baths, is a crucial factor in the maintenance of properly sharp talons and properly sized beaks. The rainwater loosens and softens the appropriate outer keratin layers of the beak and talons. These layers are laid down in such a manner that the hawk's exposure to rain, and it's postprandial feaking, perfectly shape these structures as microscopic layers are worn or sloughed off by these processes.

All of this is why I'm contending that the hawks that have lost their beak hooks will eventually have them grow back. But it could take many months, or a year or longer.

Actually, it would be scientifically useful for NYC hawkwatchers to monitor and record this. I don't know that anyone has any beak growth-rate data. Like so much else with NYC Red-tails, the recording of how long it takes for the truncated beak to grow back would be an interesting, and even helpful piece of information. If beak-damaged birds have been seen in NYC, raptor rehabilitators are likely to receive similar birds. How long should they be kept before the bill is long enough to be returned to the wild? I don't know. Let's see.

--John Blakeman

Thanks John, we have a reasonably good chance of monitoring the beak growth of the Riverside Formel with photographs and binoculars if she remains in her current territory. It sounds like a terrific project.

I'm quite taken with the fact that Red-tails need to be wetted periodically for their beaks and talons to be in top shape. Particularly when one realizes that no doubt many human partnered hawks were kept dry out of compassion and therefore had to be coped. Fascinating.


NOW-- THE RATHER INEXPLICABLE BATTLE OF THE BOWL

This is where I came in. Squirrel One is keeping Blossom the Snowbear's seed bowl from Squirrel Two. ???

Squirrel One drops the bowl and attempts to chase Two up the tree.

They circle the trunk several times.

Then it's up the tree with Two in an obscured crotch and One looking for him.

One is being wary as Two might come his way if he goes round to the other side.

Once making it to higher ground One scolds Two and then races down the tree again. It isn't as if the bowl has anything in it. Does it perhaps still smell of sunflower seeds? Whatever the case One is protecting as if it were the last nut on earth.

One contemplates the bowl.

He digs.

Oops, disarrayed belly fur.

One then tussles with the bowl. Grabbing it by the edge and walking a few steps.

It falls open side up and One digs in the snow with gusto.

More picking the bowl up by the rim and sliding it a few inches. It wobbles back and forth.

Mighty digging.

Squirrel One brings the bowl onto it's edge and slides it toward tree a few inches.

Herculean digging ensues.

Ah ha! One is attempting to put the bowl in the hole he's dug in the snow. It does not fit.

Perhaps laid this way?

NO! One takes rim in teeth, moves bowl a foot or so to the south.

Another bout of digging in the new spot.

Squirrel Two heads down the tree and Squirrel One intercepts him. Scolding.

The Mourning Doves pause pecking and watch the interaction.

Squirrel One having thwarted Squirrel Two, has the bowl in his teeth again, moving it slightly further south. Squirrel Three on the picnic table watches with a slightly baffled expression

One sits up, pauses, looks at the bowl, the ground, and then me.

One attempts digging directly beneath the bowl.

More tussling. Tries to press the too large bowl into the too small hole.

Not a good spot?

Body rigid, teeth on rim, he shoves the bowl hoping for a fit.

Begins digging beside and west of the bowl.

Then drags the bowl back toward the tree while running backwards. I don't know how often I've seen a squirrel running backwards dragging a red plastic bowl.

One begins intense frantic digging, slides in the snow, and vibrates physically. (Severe frustration?)

Attempts a body press, and still the bowl will not fit in a large walnut sized hole. Is it possible that squirrels are wired to dig nut sized holes and they haven't the mental acuity to figure out that a bigger object needs a bigger hole? Or is it just this particular frustrated individual squirrel who can't do it. Besides he's burying a BOWL, which is a bit strange in the first place. Put then squirrel Two seems to want the bowl as well. Or Squirrel Two might just want to come down the tree, or always makes it his business to give Squirrel One a hard time.

Squirrel One is on guard once again. There is Squirrel Two attempting to come down the tree, possibly to nab the bowl. Plus if you look carefully, you'll see the tail of yet another squirrel at the top of the frame.

Then I can wait no longer, I have to leave for an appointment.

Much later when I return, the squirrels are gone and the bowl, with a rather sizable hole and a gnawed bottom, is abandoned in the snow at the foot of the tree. Where it has stayed.

Donegal Browne