Buteo

Last week we talked about Accipiters, one of the two genus' that make up the hawk family. This week it is time to explore the rest of the hawks which reside in the Buteo genus. Buteos have long wings and relatively short tail which are perfect for soaring. Most Buteos hunt by ambushing their prey, preferring not to waste their energy in a chase. They mainly eat small mammals but they are usually generalists and opportunists and they will also eat reptiles, amphibians, birds, and carrion.
The largest of the Buteos that we see here in Minnesota, as well as the most common, is the red-tailed hawk. Every day on my way to and from work I can count on spotting several red-tails perched on the light poles on the side of the freeway. Red-tails are a border species meaning they often live on the edges of wooded areas and open fields. They will nest in the safety of the woods as well as roosting there at night but they need the open fields to hunt in. Roadsides are good hunting habitat since there are not many large trees in the way, there are usually a good number of rodents around, and the grass is typically cut shorter making it easier to find their prey. The bird in the first pic is a young red-tailed hawk.
Some of the other Buteos that we see here in Minnesota are broad-winged hawks, second photo, and the red-shouldered hawks, above. The broad-winged hawk is the smallest of the Buteos in this area. Their smaller size allows them to live and hunt in wooded areas that the bigger Buteos have a more difficult time navigating. Each year these birds migrate down to South America for the winter. They migrate over Minnesota in groups called kettles that sometimes consists of thousands of birds. The red-shouldered hawk is slightly smaller then the red-tail with a forty inch wingspan. They are found in the south eastern part of the state, usually near a wetland, and are much less common then the red-tail or broad-winged hawks. We also see Swainson's hawks, mostly in the south western part of the state, and rough legged hawks, that migrate into the area for the winter.

Yellowstone Part 3

We started out Wednesday by heading back over to the Yellowstone Lake area by the Fishing Bridge. As we got to the lake, much of which was still frozen, we saw two small dark shapes out on the ice. We stopped to take a closer look and found that they were a pair of river otters. One otter, pictured above, seemed to be resting near the edge of the ice while the other was running around.
After the otters finally disappeared under the ice we headed out towards the east entrance. The road was still closed off due to danger of avalanche but we did find a couple of grizzly to photograph, one at Mary's Bay and another at Sedge Bay. Unfortunately we still were not able to find the grizzly sow and cub.
Since the sky was beginning to clear up we decided to head back around the southern end of the park so that we could get some pictures of Old Faithful erupting. We had tried a couple of days earlier but the weather that day made it difficult to get good shots. With nice blue skies the pics turned out much better.
After Old Faithful we headed up to Mammoth and the north entrance to the park. We had hoped to get some more shots of the new born big horn lamb that we had seen a couple of days earlier but as we came around the corner we could not see the sheep on the cliff face where we had seen them earlier. We did see some cars pulled off a little way down the road so we headed that way to check it out. There on the hill not far from the road was the big horn ewe and lamb. Since they were much closer we were able to get a lot of good pics. It was amazing to see this little lamb scurry around on the rocks and cliffs at the ripe old age of two days.
It was getting late so we decided to head back to our hotel in West Yellowstone. On the way we spotted two black bears in different areas. The first black bear was indeed black, above, but the second was a cinnamon black bear. Black bear is a species and can come in a variety of colors, although black is the most common.

Thursday was our last day in the park. We were already quite happy with all of the great wildlife that we had seen and the photo opportunities that we had. So we decided for the finally day we would go all the way around the park, except the road between Tower and Canyon which was still closed due to snow, and just see whatever we would find. On the south loop near the Lake Area turn off a large bird flew across the road and perched in a tree close by. It turned out to be a Swanson's hawk that was cooperative and let us stop to take some pictures.

Then we headed up top the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone to take some scenery shots. This shot was taken from Artist Point and the falls in the distance are the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We do not spend much time in this area because I am afraid of heights. Since places like this bother me we just took the shot and got going as quick as possible.
Next stop was Mammoth where we were surprised and pleased to find that one of the local elk females had calved the day before. A small heard of elk live in Mammoth and the surrounding area. Since the main predators of elk are wolves and grizzly it is smart to stay in a place that has a lot of people to keep the predators away. However the elk themselves can be dangerous to people in Mammoth that get too close. The ranger, who was keeping spectators from getting to close to the elk and calf, told us that she had chased a park employee who unknowingly had gotten too close to the calf.
Bull elk usually are found alone or in small groups at this time of the year. A healthy buck like this does not have too much to fear from the predators so they usually wonder about more in the highland areas on the north side of the park. During the fall each bull will be surrounded by a harem of females in hopes that he will find one that is receptive to mating. Shortly after we took this picture it began to snow again. It was not bad on the north end but as we passed Mammoth and headed towards Norris the snow on the roads began to get deeper and driving more treacherous. I am used to driving in the snow but roads here in Minnesota get plowed and sanded. They are also wider and do not have steep drop offs or rivers on the side. We were worried that we might have to park and sleep in the car. Fortunately things got better after Norris and we were able to make it out to West Yellowstone.

Swainson's Hawk

Since things were a bit slow at Medicine Lake NWR because of the low water levels we decided that we did not really want to spend Saturday morning at the refuge again. We had half a day to spend bird watching and the other we had to drive across Montana to Livingston where our Saturday night hotel reservations were made. At the ranger station at Medicine Lake we found some info about some of the other parks and wildlife refuges that were around. After a little bit of research we decided to make a stop over at Bowdoin NWR. So Saturday morning we set out early across Montana. We saw quite a few birds along the way but since we did not have a lot of time for Bowdoin we just observed and did not stop to shot. We did make one exception when we came across a nice looking Swainson's hawk surveying the fields from on top of a telephone pole.
Swainsons' hawks can occasionally be seen in southwestern Minnesota but their numbers are declining through out their range. Their decline is due mainly to habitat destruction, although loss of prey species and pesticide poisoning also have played a factor.
After we watched him for a while he moved down to sit on a gate near the road. Swainson's hawk are unusual in that their diet consists mainly of insects. Because of this, they are very migratory, spending their winters in Florida, California, Mexico and South America. Both their breeding grounds in the western US and their wintering grounds are declining as small family farms give way to urban sprawl and large open factory farms, which have very little trees for nesting. Their decline has caused the Audubon society to put them on their watch list as a species of national conservation concern.

Burrowing Owl

On August 6th I received an e-mail from the MOU list server about a group of burrowing owls that had been spotted in southern Minnesota. Burrowing owls are not all that common in Minnesota, the western part of the state is the on the eastern edge of their range, so I was kind of excited about the prospect of going and getting some pics. The only issue was that the location that they were spotted was about 250 miles from home.

It was a nice day and I had plenty of time so I decided to make the trek. On the way down I decided to take the more scenic route instead of taking the freeway. I saw a lot of birds on the trip including red tail hawks, turkey vulture, heron, egret, eastern kingbird, plus lots of sparrows and waterfowl. Most of the time I was on highways with very little shoulders and speed limits of 65mph so I could not really stop for pictures. But when I got on the back roads, close to my destination, I did stop to take a couple of shots.Southern Minnesota is filled with farm fields which are excellent habitat for bug eating raptors like this male american kestrel.The telephone poles frequently had red tail or swainson's hawks, like the one above, perched searching the field for small rodents. After about 5 hours I finally arrived at the soybean field where the owls had been spotted. I did a quick scan and spotted some movement in a single file line of small trees. There were the owls.Since the owls where on private property and a little ways in I got out my tripod and teleconverter so that I could try and get some close ups. Fortunately one of the owls was perched at the top of one of the small trees so I had a pretty unobstructed view. It was a good thing it was a soybean field and not corn. I took a few shots of the perched bird and even got a couple of one in flight.
By this point it was already 2:30pm and I still had a long drive back home. On the way back I took the freeway to save time. The total trip took 9 hours which is a lot of time for about 30 minutes of shooting but it was worth it to get a species that MOU lists as casual in Minnesota.

Medicine Lake continued

At the Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge we also were able to photograph a few birds in the fields surrounding the lakes. Along with red-winged blackbirds they had a pretty good population of yellow-headed blackbirds.
Red-wings are common in eastern Minnesota but yellow-heads are not so we always like to get shots of the Yellow-heads when we get the chance. We did have one living at Woodlake Nature Center in the Twin Cities earlier this year but I have not been back in a while to check and see if it is still around. Sounds like something to do tonight.
We also spotted a couple of chestnut-collared longspur. They were difficult to shoot because they stayed low in the grass.
Eastern Kingbirds are also common in eastern Minnesota. I usually see quite a few when I visit the Carpenter Nature Center in Hasting's Minnesota.
The range of the western kingbird does not extend to the eastern portion of Minnesota.
We saw many ring-necked pheasants in the park and in the fields on the side of the road on the way there and on the way back.

We even saw a jack rabbit spying on us from near the border of the preserve.
After we left Medicine Lake we spotted this harrier flying over the field on the side of the road. We spotted many harrier on our trip but usually we were on the freeway and could not stop. Since we were on a highway at the time we decided to stop and get a couple of shots.
After I got a couple shots my wife noticed a second raptor had flown into the area. I believed that the second bird was a female harrier but it was pointed out by Dennis and Barbara Martin that it looked more like a swainson's hawk.

The dark remiges certainly looked like a swainson's but I was still not sure until I found this picture in my archives.

This shot had the clearest view of the second birds face.
And it was not very harrier like. Dennis and Barbara were right. Thank you very much for the correction.

It appears as though the swainson's was intruding on the harriers territory. This is something that prolly happens often out in open areas like the one we were in. The harrier did not seem to take the invasion lightly.
I kept shooting as they continued to circle each other until they faded away into the distance. Then we headed on home to give our attention starved cat some love.