Outside My Window

Last evening as I left work I heard a scrabbling on the edge of this huge satellite dish behind WQED.  It sounded like claws scratching metal — almost as unpleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard.  The noise attracted the attention of everyone nearby.

The sound was made by a red-tailed hawk who had landed on the dish to hunt rabbits in the weeds below.  Not a good move!   He slid down to the seam and stood lopsided, one foot higher than the other, gripping the edge.

Since he didn’t care that I was watching I took his picture with my cellphone.  (He’s in the exact center of the photo.)

Fortunately it doesn’t matter if he hurts this dish as we haven’t used it for years.  Trees have grown up around it and mossy dirt stains the inside.  Like many defunct structures it’s too expensive to take down, so it’s slowly surrounded by urban wildlife.

And topped off by a dish hawk.

(photo by Kate St. John)

Bald eagles are majestic but opportunistic.  Sometimes they use their power to steal from others.

I once saw an osprey plunge feet first into a bay, grasp a fish in his talons, and flap like crazy to pull up.  As soon as he gained some altitude he shook off the water, just like a dog, and arranged the fish head first for aerodynamic flight.  Then he was on his way…

… or so he thought.  A bald eagle was watching and decided to steal the fish.

Eagles are fast, powerful fliers on the straight-away and this one knew he had the advantage.  He gained on the osprey so quickly I was certain he’d hit him and take the fish.

But the osprey had experience with eagles.  He turned and ducked, backtracked and swerved.  Sometimes he flew up, sometimes down.  The eagle kept up with him but was slower to make the turns.  There were moments when the eagle was breathing down his neck but the osprey always escaped.

The osprey knew something I did not.  The eagle was getting tired.

Suddenly, to my surprise, the eagle turned and rapidly flew away from the osprey.  Through binoculars I could see the eagle’s beak was open.  He was panting!

The osprey’s agility won the day.

(photo of an osprey by Steve Gosser)

Libby Strizzi alerted me to this heart-warming video about a severely injured bald eagle who got a chance at a better life.

Beauty lost her upper beak when she was shot in the face by a poacher. This 2008 video shows the first of many steps in restoring her missing beak.

The video has been popular on the Internet this month, but current news of Beauty is hard to find because the original website at Birds of Prey Northwest has been inundated by recent web traffic.

Though we don’t know how Beauty’s doing today, the film is full of hope.

(2008 Emmy award-winning video by Keith Bubach, produced for Evening Magazine, KING-TV, Seattle)

Here’s a video of a juvenile burrowing owl demonstrating his talent in Cape Coral, Florida.

“What is this?”  he says.  “No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make sense.”

(video by heykayde on YouTube.  For more information about the video, click here or see Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife.)

p.s. Sorry about the ads, they come with the video.

We’ve all seen robins splashing in water but how many of us have seen a hawk take a bath?

Last Saturday it was already hot when Gregg Diskin took a walk through Schenley Park with his camera.  Near Bartlett Playground he saw a hawk disappear under the bridge so he walked down the path to investigate.  There he found an immature red-tailed hawk taking a dip in the stream.

Bathing is a relatively vulnerable activity so we rarely see adult hawks doing it.  My hunch is that this bird was one of the two immature red-tails who starred in Monday’s blog.  He had almost no fear of people, felt right at home, and continued to bathe while Gregg snapped a series of pictures.

Click on the photo above for a slideshow of the red-tail’s bath.  At the end he has something to say to Gregg.

(photos by Gregg Diskin)

This spring two red-tailed hawk babies fledged from the Panther Hollow Bridge in Schenley Park.  They’re already as big as their parents but they don’t act grown up.  They’re not wary of humans and they whine when they’re hungry.

At this stage they’re learning how to capture and kill prey with their feet.  They’ve been watching their parents for tips but they always hope their parents will deliver dinner.  Meanwhile the adults are waiting longer to feed them, hoping the kids will take the hint: “Feed yourself!”

The two juveniles are often found together because Little Brother, the younger of the two, follows his big sister at meal times in case she catches something.

In mid-July Jim Funderburgh found the two hawks exploring the park on their own. Little Brother whined but his sister had nothing to give him so he found a mouse-size object and practiced his prey techniques.

In the video below he clutches to kill it … but it surprises him.  Yikes!

Whatcha got there, Little Brother?

A pinecone!

(photo and video by Jim Funderburgh)

On Tuesday morning I got a phone call from University of Pittsburgh Facilities Management that made my heart fall to the floor.

Phil Hieber said that an injured baby falcon, possibly a peregrine, had been found at the Posvar Hall garage.  The people who found it had put it in a box and wanted to know what to do.

My first thought was, “Oh no!”  and then I remembered that people often mistake other birds of prey for young peregrines.  And I reminded myself that I’d seen all three juveniles high on the Cathedral of Learning only two hours earlier and they had not been lower than the 30th floor for days.

I couldn’t afford to leave work Tuesday morning but if this was one of our “juvies” I would drop everything and run to Pitt.  How could I tell it was a peregrine over the phone?

Was the bird banded?  Phil said it was not so I knew it wasn’t one of our peregrines.  (Whew!)

I urged them to call the ARL Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Verona, 412-793-6900, and drive the bird over there.  Then I emailed Jill Argall at the Wildlife Center to let her know an injured bird was on its way, and I asked her to let me know what it was.

Later that day Jill replied that it was a kestrel and it was doing fine.

Indeed it was a “baby” (small) falcon.

American kestrels are our smallest falcon so they do resemble peregrines.  I know they’re in Oakland because I’ve seen them on campus.  Last Saturday an adult male kestrel flew by the Cathedral of Learning and perched on the flagpole at Carnegie Museum.

I’m glad to know the kestrel is doing well.  Sighs of relief all around!

(photo of a kestrel on a flagpole (though not at Pitt) by Brian Herman)

p.s. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and find an injured animal or bird, call the ARL Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Verona, 412-793-6900. 

In June I can hear the locations of red-tailed hawks before I see them, not because the hawks are making any noise but because they’re surrounded by crowds of small birds who are shouting at them.

The hawks are huge, the songbirds small, so the birds of prey try to ignore their tormentors and find food — a mouse, a rabbit, an exposed fledgling songbird — but that’s exactly why they attract a crowd.

Tom Merriman found this red-tail in Mount Oliver with his back turned to the shouting. Did it work?

Probably not. It’s mighty hard to hunt by stealth when everyone knows you’re there.  If the songbirds sustain their attack the hawk usually gives up and leaves without catching anything.

Peregrines attack bald eagles.  Robins harass red-tails.  Chickadees chase blue jays. All of them shout, “I don’t care how big you are.  Stay away from my babies!”

(photo by Tom Merriman)

p.s. This photo has an imbedded quiz.  Can you identify the small bird harassing the red-tailed hawk? Leave a comment with your answer.

This week it’s been “All peregrines, all the time” but falcons aren’t the only birds of prey nesting around Schenley Park.

Down the road on the other side of Phipps Conservatory there’s a red-tailed hawks’ nest with two young birds that soon will fly.  If you’ve walked near the pond under the Panther Hollow Bridge you’ve probably heard their whistle-whine.  “Come feed me!”

In late April they hadn’t hatched yet when I encountered Gregg Diskin with his camera in Schenley Park.  He told me he planned to photograph the nestlings as they matured.

Because their stick-nest is deep it wasn’t possible to see them until they were tall enough to look over the rim.  At first they were fluffy white, just like baby peregrines, but now they’ve grown feathers to match their parents’ coloration. In Gregg’s photo above they’re about halfway there.

At last they are full grown.  When I saw them yesterday they were at the gawky stage –  fully feathered with downy fluff on their heads — and they were whining loudly.  Their voices echo under the bridge.

If you’d like to see them, walk the valley under the Panther Hollow Bridge and look up.  But don’t pause on the path where there’s a lot of bird poop.  You don’t want to be in “poot” range.  (Click here to see.)

(photos by Gregory Diskin)

If you live on the coast you probably see bald eagles all the time but here in Pittsburgh it’s astonishing to see one in the city, especially in June, especially at the University of Pittsburgh a mile from the Monongahela River.

So imagine our amazement at the Pitt Peregrine Fledge Watch yesterday when an immature bald eagle appeared over Schenley Plaza riding a thermal.

Everybody had just focused their binoculars on the eagle and I was explaining why it didn’t have a white head and tail (they don’t turn white until the eagle matures at age four to five) when … Bang!  A peregrine came out of nowhere and attacked him.

It was the eagle’s turn to be astonished.  Dorothy zoomed up and dove again. Bang!  “Stay away from my babies!”

The eagle tried to lose altitude to get out of her way but he maneuvered like a C-130 cargo plane versus Dorothy, the fighter jet.

She was relentless, fast and dangerous.  The eagle flipped upside down to show his talons, hoping to fend her off, but he made a mistake.  He kept flying toward the Cathedral of Learning where Dorothy’s three youngsters waited and watched.

Again and again she dove on him, driving him past the Cathedral of Learning toward Downtown.  “Move it, buddy!”

Just before they disappeared she came close for good measure.

A minute passed.

Dorothy returned to the Cathedral of Learning victorious.

It was all in a day’s work for a mother peregrine falcon.  Go, Dorothy!

(photos by Peter Bell)