Colorado Raptors of Winter: An Interview With Anne Price

You guys have heard of Anne Price from the Raptor Education Foundation (REF) before: she's the one who brings all of the awesome birds of prey to the raptor shows at the Best Western Denver Southwest dinosaur hotel!  Eager to learn more about some of the raptors that live here in Colorado during the winter, and how the change in weather affects the birds behavior!  She was nice enough to oblige, and the answers were definitely very interesting!  So after you check out the REF website HERE and like their Facebook page HERE, please join me in welcoming Anne Price, Curator of Raptors at the Raptor Education Foundation!

Anne Price with a prairie falcon at the Best Western Denver Southwest!

1. What raptors are you likely to see if you live along the Front Range here in Colorado?

The big four hawks are: red-tailed hawk (year round), Swainson’s hawk (April through early October), rough-legged hawk (October through March), and Ferruginous hawk (year round, but rare on front range in summer months).  Turkey vultures in spring, bald eagles in winter, golden eagles, Cooper’s hawks and American kestrels year-round, turkey vultures and osprey from March through October.  There are more species around but these are the most likely to be seen by the average birder.

A red-tailed hawk at another one of the raptor shows at the Best Western!

2. What raptors have migrated away that you would be able to see along the Front Range during the summer?

Turkey vultures and Swainson’s hawks.

Anne Price holding a turkey vulture!

3. What special behavior, such as courtship rituals or other behaviors like that, can you observe in raptors during December and January along the Front Range?

You may see red-tailed hawks and bald eagles start to sit next to each other in trees or along telephone poles. The big excitement comes from great-horned owls, which will begin courtship calling (hooting back and forth) in the middle of the night, starting around Christmas Day.

Anne holding a great-horned owl!

4. Do the raptors at the REF change their behavior at all during the winter? If so, how do they change?

Our birds eat more, so we feed them more to put on just a bit more fat for the cold weather. Our two Swainson’s hawks get feisty and start stealing food because their metabolism is telling them that they need to bulk up for a long migration ahead. I always let them gain 1-3 oz during this transition so they are ready for the cold, which came early this year and was REALLY cold. Our female golden eagle will also start gaining weight and developing a brood patch as she gets ready to lay her eggs in early March. She has gained 9 oz just in the last 2 weeks!

A golden eagle takes flight in Dinosaur National Monument!

5.  Finally, I remember you mentioning the black streaks under the eyes of the prairie falcon as a glare reducing adaptation. What can you tell me about that?

It’s called the “malar stripe” or “malar mark.” It’s meant to reduce glare by having the sun strike or be concentrated in the area beneath the eye, leaving the area above in proper contrast. These are black or dark lines under the eyes of cheetahs, most falcons (gyrfalcons and merlins being notable exceptions).  Even flickers have malar stripes, though in these birds they serve as signals for courtship, not for better visibility of prey species!

Which is why the Rockies and the Broncos do the same thing…….

A REF prairie falcon at the Best Western!

Thank you so much Anne for taking the time out of your schedule to answer some of our questions!  I know I will definitely be on the lookout for these birds in the upcoming weeks, and hopefully everyone else will be, too!  Make sure to check out the REF Facebook page HERE, as well as their website HERE.  You can also come visit all the REF birds on Saturday, April 12 from 11am to 2pm! Admission is free and there will be giveaways and refreshments.  RSVPs are kindly requested; please visit http://www.usaref.org/OpenHouse.htm.  Thanks again, and keep an eye out for a follow-up post regarding those fascinating malar marks!

Drive to the Quarry: Dinosaur Road Trip With Grace Part 3

PREVIOUSLY, ON BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:

-Grace Albers and I are taking a trip down to Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado.
-We checked out some cool petroglyphs and then camped the night.
-And now....

Grace was up before I was, and got some cool pictures near the Green River that went right by our campsite!

A sprinkler going off on the farmlands across the river!

A golden-mantled ground squirrel back at the campsite!  These things sure can get pesky, especially if there's food around!

After a quick breakfast, we were off to the quarry!  Here are some of the gorgeous scenery shots on the way!  Pyg definitely enjoyed our view of the Green River!

The Green River in the bottom of the shot!

And then....we saw it!  As we were driving, Grace suddenly told me to stop and back up (as there was no one on the road.  I was being safe, mother, don't worry).  Her instincts were right: it was a golden eagle!  Here are a ton of great shots she took!

Pretty awesome pictures, right!  Well, we continued on to the quarry and were met with an enormous Stegosaurus statue out front!  Here is a picture of Grace next to it!

And here's a Pyg pic!

We went inside of the visitors center.  While we waited for the shuttle to arrive to take us up to the quarry, we looked at some of the things that were inside of the visitor center!  First off, we have some fossil lizard footprints from the Chinle Formation, a Late Triassic formation of North America, whose rocks are around 225 million years old!

Next we have part of the jaw of the large Morrison Formation predator Allosaurus!

Now THIS I thought was really cool, and we will talk more about it in later Dinosaur National Monument posts, but pretty much the two pictures below are before and after pictures.  The first picture is what the intersection of the Green and Yampa Rivers looks like today.  The second is a drawing of what the area WOULD look like if a dam had been built downstream in 1950!  Fortunately, the dam plans were averted!  We will talk more about this dam thingy later!

Pyg touches a large hunk of rock that is about 1.2 BILLION years old!

"What do they keep in there, King Kong?"  Nice Jurassic Park reference, Zack.

After a bit of waiting, the shuttle arrived!  Pyg eagerly awaits our departure!

As we were boarding the tram, I noticed a pair of birds of prey soaring above our heads!  Originally, I thought that they were two of the same birds, and it wasn't until after I put the pictures onto my computer that I realized that these were two very different birds, indeed!  However, I had little to no idea what these birds were, so I contacted Anne Price, the Curator of Raptors at the Raptor Education Foundation, who often brings some fantastic birds to the Best Western Denver Southwest!  To see some fantastic pictures of these experiences and to learn more about them, click HERE and HERE!

Anyways, after talking with Anne, she said that the above picture, as well as the two below, are all of an immature red-tailed hawk, "with a very distinct “dash-and-comma” markings on the wings."

Anne got pretty excited about this last picture, though!  Here is what she said in the email:

"I am 99% certain it is an adult goshawk!!  Very rare to see this bird soaring, and totally in an unusual area; this bird is getting ready  to migrate, or has already started to. Of the 3 accipiters in the US (which are known for having short wings and long tails), the goshawk has the longest wings proportionally to the body and tail. You can very much see that in evidence in your photo. The distinct stripes on the tail are a giveaway too."

Pretty exciting stuff, I'm glad we got the chance to see one!

Finally, as the tram started moving, we noticed some ripple marks frozen in the rock face above us, a reminder that most of the surrounding area was under a shallow inland sea!

Next time: The Quarry!