Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022
Very early in the morning.
Like, just when it’s just light enough at pre-dawn to safely walk a dirt path without a head lamp.
Fingernail moon, 6:58 a.m.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
I leave the house this early because I like to be in position for “first light” of the day, when birds can be first heard and first seen. Not that it always pays off. Or, maybe I’m just antsy to get on out. At any rate, I’ve got a good thirty minutes of walking out across the valley to get around to the backside of the wastewater treatment plant, and the 5.5 acre settling pond where the good ducks (et. al.) have been in times past. I used to be able to just bicycle right in the front gate, but that’s been canked since the past two years due to the massive rebuild of all the plant infrastructure. Small matter. On a Sunday, early in the a.m. and with construction finally nearing completion there’s no work going on and as far as I’ve been able to tell virtually no human activity other than myself. Where I’m standing, taking my photos, is well away from where any construction would be taking place, so I’m safe enough. So’s the Bald Eagle I’d say, from it’s demeanor, that I’ve now photographed two Sundays in a row, perched in the exact same spot on the exact same tree, exact same branch:
Oct. 16, 2022
Oct. 23, 2022
But the above BAEA photos are after zooming and then cropping, of course. Here’s way less zoom, although from where I’m standing and with my naked eye all I can make out is that there are a couple of white spots (the eagle’s head and tail) up in the tree that don’t look quite natural. Binoculars!
Easy enough to make out in this photo; but naked eye at 200 yards you can’t really tell for certain that’s a Bald Eagle up on those bare branches.
Here’s a Google Earth view of the path I walk and my destination:
There’s nothing much spectacular going on at the big poo-pond right now, mostly Mallards and Ring-necked and Wigeon; so just the one photo of that and it’s time to get on with the sequence, funning, fer cryin’ out loud.
Ring-necked Duck
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So, it was while walking back yesterday and getting about half-way that I spotted the Northern Harrier, on a fence post about a hundred yards ahead. I pulled my camera and got a couple of verification shots, that this Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius) was indeed “First of Season” for 2022-23 winter year. Many more to come, I do not doubt, but this was a pretty good start.
I get the juveniles around here, not the adult “Grey Ghosts”.
I had to walk forward to where the Harrier was perched, and it flew off of course, but after I’d passed that fence post I could see the Harrier still in flight and heading back, so I flipped my camera onto sequential shooting mode and what you see is what I got. My camera definitely has its limitations, but I can be happy enough with this.
...and right back to where it started from.
From ALL ABOUT BIRDS:
The Northern Harrier is distinctive from a long distance away: a slim, long-tailed hawk gliding low over a marsh or grassland, holding its wings in a V-shape and sporting a white patch at the base of its tail. Up close it has an owlish face that helps it hear mice and voles beneath the vegetation. Each gray-and-white male may mate with several females, which are larger and brown. These unusual raptors have a broad distribution across North America.
- Northern Harriers are the most owl-like of hawks (though they’re not related to owls). They rely on hearing as well as vision to capture prey. The disk-shaped face looks and functions much like an owl’s, with stiff facial feathers helping to direct sound to the ears.
- Juvenile males have pale greenish-yellow eyes, while juvenile females have dark chocolate brown eyes. The eye color of both sexes changes gradually to lemon yellow by the time they reach adulthood.
- Male Northern Harriers can have as many as five mates at once, though most have only one or two. The male provides most of the food for his mates and their offspring, while the females incubate the eggs and brood the chicks.
- Northern Harriers hunt mostly small mammals and small birds, but they are capable of taking bigger prey like rabbits and ducks. They sometimes subdue larger animals by drowning them.
- Northern Harrier fossils dating from 11,000 to 40,000 years ago have been unearthed in northern Mexico.
- The oldest Northern Harrier on record was a female, and at least 15 years, 4 months old when she was captured and released in 2001 by a bird bander in Quebec. She was banded in New Jersey in 1986.
Take a bow, my fine feathered hunter, take a bow.
Now It's Your Turn. What have you noted hap
But Wait!! There’s MORE!!!
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
First-of-Season Ferruginous Hawk
I was not at all expecting its return this early in the year. What a bonus!
*Buteo regalis*
All About Birds:
Found in prairies, deserts, and open range of the West, the regal Ferruginous Hawk hunts from a lone tree, rock outcrop, or from high in the sky. This largest of North American hawks really is regal—its species name is regalis—with a unique gray head, rich, rusty (ferruginous) shoulders and legs, and gleaming white underparts. A rarer dark-morph is reddish-chocolate in color. Ferruginous Hawks eat a diet of small mammals, sometimes standing above prairie dog or ground squirrel burrows to wait for prey to emerge.
- Ferruginous Hawks and Rough-legged Hawks (plus the Golden Eagle) are the only American hawks to have feathered legs all the way down to their toes.
- Ferruginous means rust-colored, and refers to the reddish back and legs of light-morph birds (which are more common than dark morphs).
- When bison still roamed the west, Ferruginous Hawk nests contained bison bones and hair along with sticks and twigs.
Look for Ferruginous Hawks in the open country of the West, where they may be just a speck soaring high in the sky, albeit a brilliantly white speck, as light-morph Ferruginous Hawks are strikingly pale and distinctive. These birds also perch on telephone poles and also on the ground, where they can be hard to spot. In these wide open spaces, learning to tell their shape at long distances is key to finding them: look for their long, relatively narrow and somewhat pointed wings, much different from a Red-tailed Hawk’s silhouette. Also note their tendency to fly with their wings in a dihedral V shape—slightly raised above the horizontal.
Along with a Red-tailed Hawk, in flight.
OK, now It's Your Turn.
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
Thank you.