Naturalist on the Run, Part II

Driving along an urban street to meet friends for our weekly long run, my husband and I were startled by a sight I had always wanted to see. Ten yards in front of our car, a hawk flapped heavily, seemingly unable to fly up into the crook of a tree, weighed down by the Rock Pigeon in its talons. Whether because of us or for some other reason, the hawk let go, and the pigeon flew away. Larger than the males, as hawks are, females prey on medium-sized birds such as pigeons and doves as well as smaller birds. What amazes me, though, is that the prey can weigh almost as much as the predator, with the largest pigeon weighing up to 13.4 ounces and the largest hawk weighing only an ounce more. Maybe the hawks predate only on smaller pigeons. Cooper’s Hawks also maraud birdfeeders in search of more petite birds. I don’t admit it to other bird lovers, but I’ve always secretly hoped that a Cooper’s or a Sharp-shinned Hawk would appear at my birdfeeder for a dramatic chase full of skill and agility.

Not as astonishing but still fun: the week before on a chilly evening run, an animal swam toward the bank in the river alongside us. We assumed it was a beaver, but a closer look revealed a raccoon. If this one was representative, they are fast, strong, and confident swimmers.

Close to Home

I’ve been reading in Women in the Field: America’s Pioneering Women Naturalists about nineteenth- and twentieth-century female ornithologists. Although many of them traveled afield, what caught my eye was that many of them stayed close to home and made their most important contributions to science by observing “ordinary” birds such as the Northern Flicker and the Black-capped Chickadee. Cordelia Stanwood (1865-1958) conducted her studies on the forty acres of habitat surrounding her home. Rich and varied, the land included appealing microcosms ranging from fields and wetlands to forest, used by a wide variety of birds that provided Stanwood with a lifetime of nature study. Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) studied the Song Sparrow. Althea Rosina Sherman (1854-1943) spent years focusing on the Northern Flickers she watched from her Iowa dooryard before she took a trip around the world. Studies on local flora and fauna may arguably have been more characteristic of female naturalists with their circumscribed range of travel, but male naturalists also studied the pedestrian and the local. The most famous naturalist of all, Charles Darwin, ran most of his study about earthworms (the book apparently sold better than On the Origin of Species during his lifetime) from his country estate. It’s comforting to know that someday even if I cannot go afield, I can always study the Black-capped Chickadees from my window.

Key West

I was sitting on a beach in Key West, mesmerized by a gull I had never seen before. A striking black head had captured my attention, and I forgot to notice other telling details such as size and beak color. A single aspect distracted me so that I didn’t absorb the entire picture. I’m pretty sure I was watching a Bonaparte’s Gull, though. Pelicans dove into the ocean in numbers so great, it’s hard to believe they were almost extinct in the 1960s and 70s. They stun fish with their bodies before scooping them up into their pouches. They also turn their heads to the left to protect their trachea and esophagus, located on the right side of their bodies. Kingfishers perched on wires along the highway between Miami and Key West. Osprey cruised over our car and platform nests appeared along the length of the road. I was disappointed I didn’t see any shorebirds or tropical birds, but it wasn’t that kind of vacation.

Letting Go

Incubation is more than stillness and silence, but an anticipation of flight, fraught for me with both pleasure and anxiety. Before the eaglets even hatch, I project my worries, fretting that as fledglings the young birds will fall off a limb to the ground where a coyote might scent them out. Before my first year of observation, I had no idea that a graceful adult begins as a clumsy fledgling that totters as it balances on a branch that bounces like a slackline under the weight of an adult-sized juvenile with a reluctance to let go and fly. When I found out, the process of egg to fledgling scared me just that much more. I forgot how much I worry until I started watching again this year, my third year.

The first year, I saw the moment of what I think was first flight for the fledglings. For me, the occasion was a “National Geographic moment.” I held my breath as the juveniles flew, not with grace but with enough ability and strength to support themselves in the air. I only released my breath when they came to rest on a branch. I wanted them to fly without risk, but that wasn’t possible.

This is my third year watching the eagles. I feel the excitement of the brooding adult more now that I’ve seen the entire cycle, and I know that someday I will see those eggs break into hatchlings that in the best of all worlds will later fly. And, this year I might see them next year as subadults, knowing they survived, knowing their first attempts at flight succeeded.

Below, I've included a photo of the antelope jaw fragments I wrote about last week. Also, I’ll be on vacation next week, but will be back the following Wednesday.

Watching Eagles and Boiling Bones

I saw an eagle perched in the tree. I adjusted my scope and the eagle was gone—flown away while I averted my eyes for less than a minute. I adjusted my scope onto the nest, blinked my eyes, and there sat two eagles side by side. I watched for an hour and a half as one eagle, who I later learned was the female, prepared the nest, with the other helping in a desultory fashion, occasionally moving larger sticks. The female arranged the nest, pulling and rearranging tufts of material in a methodical clockwise pattern. More copulation followed, after which the two perched close together.

Then I went home and boiled bones. Earlier in the year, I found portions of jawbones, long and slender with no developed canines. I believe the bones came from an antelope, for many populate the area where I was hiking. The teeth are whole and uncracked, and also coated with tarter, all possible indicators of the animal’s health and age, if I knew how to read them. One molar hadn’t erupted, but I could see it underneath the material that loosened as I submerged one bone segment in hot water and scrubbed at it gently with my thumb, peeling away the tight layer of membrane called the periosteum, which provides blood supply to bones. Do antelope have wisdom teeth?

Eagle Watch—Day One

Last Thursday was my first day of Bald Eagle observation for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. I expected a typical day, in which I would see an adult eagle (or maybe two) perched in the old Cottonwood overseeing the surrounding fields. While it’s a privilege to see any Bald Eagle, when you’re keeping vigil for two hours, you want something to happen. “Something,” of course, is all perception, because I know I am witnessing them do the most important thing they do—analyze their surroundings for prey. The more acute their observation, the more precise their hunting and the less energy expended getting the next meal. Still, from a human perspective, I perceive this as doing nothing, and I sometimes spend my time impatiently watching for two hours while they patiently survey the environs, training their eagle eyes on what is invisible to me, all without moving from the tree’s gnarly branches.

Predictably, one eagle perched in the nesting tree. An hour later, it still perched in that exact spot. But, then, my boredom was alleviated in a dramatic fashion when a second eagle swept in and landed on top of the first. They copulated. The eagles are on schedule, with eggs most likely appearing close to Valentine’s Day. Next time I go out, I can expect to see one of the eagles, either one, on the nest—males and females share nesting duties.

The inception of new life in this setting is exciting. The act may result in one hatchling or two, and, if everything goes well, an eventual fledging. I don’t know what will happen, but this was the true beginning of the season. The moment of intrigue ended quickly, though, and the eagles perched for the next hour, and probably far beyond when I disassembled my tripod and scope and put away my data sheets.

Spring in Their Step

They disappear into sewer drains. They travel miles through subterranean systems. They scavenge from garbage cans and scarf dog food that you leave outside. They nest in chimneys, crawlspaces, and under your porch. They’re raccoons (Procyon lotor). I’ve seen a couple of them recently, running across the street, headed toward the sewers. The weather lately has been making me think about spring, and they are anticipating it as well. They mate January through March, and have a gestation period of about 63 days, meaning their kits are born in spring, which begins on March 20 this year and ends on June 20. But, the longer daylight is making me anticipate signs of spring other than raccoon locomotion, including the emerging leaf buds on the trees, the birds transforming into breeding plumage, and the eagle monitoring I’ll begin this week. The raccoons and my thoughts about spring may collide, though, if I fail to clean up the birdseed underneath my feeder.