As I mentioned in a post just a few days ago about the Harris hawk (which you can read by clicking HERE), the fantastic dinosaur-themed remodel at the Best Western Denver Southwest is well underway, and the folks over there are making the hotel even more fantastic by having weekly raptor (bird of prey) shows on Saturdays! Each Saturday, Anne Price, one of the folks over at the Raptor Education Foundation, brings over four birds of prey to show to the audience! Last week, they brought over a Harris hawk (which, like I already mentioned, I talked about in a previous post), a prairie falcon, a red-tailed hawk, and a great-horned owl! I have so much information I wanted to share with you...but how! How could I POSSIBLY share all of this information in a non-story like, brain-dumpy fashion? AH-HAH! Another 23-Fact Tuesday is upon us! But before you enjoy, make sure you check out the website for the Raptor Education Foundation by clicking HERE, and checking out the Facebook page for the Best Western Denver Southwest by clicking HERE!
1. This particular prairie falcon actually used to fly down at the Air Force Academy, where many of the cadets have the option of training a falcon!
2. The great-horned owl used to be the only member of the genus Bubo (what a fun name, right?), but around ten years ago, scientists reclassified the snowy owl to be the second member of the genus.
5. In response to this behavior on the part of the falcons, some prey species of bird have developed very tough feathers on their back and such to defend themselves against such attacks.
6. In nocturnal owls, like the great horned owl, the eyes are surrounded by a sort of sensory dish full of hyper-sensitive feathers that can actually detect sound, funneling it into the “dish.”
7. Diurnal owls, such as the burrowing owls, do not have this dish, or at least it is not as pronounced as other owls that are more active at night. The burrowing owl is actually most active at dawn and dusk, although it can function perfectly well at night.
8. Red-tailed hawks apparently love to nest in cottonwood trees. I think I might have actually found a red-tailed hawk nest in a cottonwood tree: hopefully, there will be more information on that in a later post!
A red-tailed hawk nest in what might or might not be a cottonwood tree....Photo Credit: gaiagarden.blogspot.com
9. The great-horned owl that Anne brought in for the presentation is DEFINITELY a survivor: he has survived being shot, hit by a car, West Nile Virus, and being attacked by another owl!
10. Here's the scoop: this particular great-horned owl first came to the sanctuary because it was hit by a car which, in the long run, probably saved its life. The reason why it hit the car in the first place was that it was flying drunkenly about due to the fact that it had West Nile Virus, which had caused its brain to go a little loopy. The owl received the medical treatment that it needed, and it wasn’t until a few years later, when it accidentally broke its leg, that a full X-Ray was ordered, and it was revealed that the owl had a few pellets lodged in its back. The skin had grown around it and completely healed, but yeah. Still. What a trooper!
11. You might have noticed on some of these great-horned owl pictures that the pupil of the left eye is MUCH more dilated than the pupil on the right eye. This is because this great-horned owl is blind is his left eye, due to the brush with West Nile Virus we were just talking about.
12. Later on, there was an enclosure that contained three great horned owls: two males that could fly and an older, grumpier female that couldn’t really fly that well. The two males could EASILY avoid the female by remaining up in the top of the enclosure, where the female simply could not reach them. However, one time, the people walked into the enclosure to find this particular male great horned owl perched next to the grumpy female. The female didn’t seem to be displaying any hostility towards him, so they left them together. After a few weeks, I believe, the female had decided that she had had enough, and attacked the male, and I believe broke his wing. He can fly today, but not terribly well, and not very far.
13. Not all red-tailed hawks have a red tail. There is a wide variety of coloric differences across its vast range, and sometimes even melanistic forms are seen. This DEFINITELY messes with birders!
A melanistic red-tailed hawk! Melanistic, FYI, would be just like a melanistic jaguar, where the coat of the animal is very, very dark, much darker than noraml, due to a pigment issue in its genes! Photo Credit: thenatureniche.com
14. As a matter of fact, none of them have red-tails their first year! At that point in their life, their tails are a darkish gray-brown: muddy and dull with darker brown stripes.
15. The juveniles don’t actually get their red tails until they molt, which, at the time this post is being written (early July) is happening now, in the spring and summer. Here, we have a video featuring the red-tailed hawk, as well as a brief appearance by a pooping Harris hawk (which unfortunately happens off screen)!
16. Besides the owls, only one other type of raptor is able to swivel one of it's toes to face backwards, so that it has two toes pointing forwards and two toes pointing backwards: the osprey! The osprey does this to allow for a more secure grip when catching fish, and the owls undoubtedly do it for much the same purpose when it comes to holding on to their prey.
An osprey, where you have a clear shot of its feet! Photo Credit: www.flickr.com
17. This particular prairie falcon has also survived a brush with West Nile Virus, just like the great horned owl! Anne was telling us that no one really but her would know it, but he far right tail feather on this bird has grown in weirdly ever since the birds dangerous brush with the virus. Here, we have a brief video where Anne talks a bit about this particular falcon's feather!
18. Just like dogs, birds don't sweat. Also just like dogs, birds will sometimes pant to help keep cool! Below, we have a video of the great-horned owl thermoregulating via something we like to call "gular fluttering!"
19. As you can see in this video below, the prairie falcon is being assisted in its thermoregulation by the presenter Anne, who is misting him with some water!
21. The two brown streaks under its eyes help keep some of the light from reflecting into its eyes, just like the black paint worn under the eyes by football and baseball players. Another fascinating example of convergent evolution at its finest!
22. A lot of the time when people think a hawk has gotten in and killed their chickens, its actually an owl.
A fox in the henhouse! I couldn't find a picture of a hawk in a henhouse, and besides, I really liked this picture. Photo Credit: www.hyscience.com
23. For reasons that Anne couldn’t fully explain, other than maybe panic or opportunity, often when an owl finds itself in a pigeon loft, the owl will only pull out and eat one or two of the pigeons, but it will pull off the heads of almost all of them, and leave them there. An interesting and gruesome way to end yet another fun-filled and fascinating 23-Fact Tuesday!
Make sure you check out the website for the Raptor Education Foundation by clicking HERE, and checking out the Facebook page for the Best Western Denver Southwest by clicking HERE!
Today was quite an eventful day, for many reasons! Went to the Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo with some good friends of ours; learned that Ray Wise is not in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but is actually in X-Men: First Class; and learned that the building off the highway called "Quaker Steak and Lube" is actually a restaurant, and not a car repair place. Also, on my way to the Morrison Museum this morning, I saw what I am pretty sure was a peregrine falcon, as well as a number of red-tailed hawks and kestrels, and the great-horned owl that I have seen a few times recently perched on the "speed limit" sign on the highway! It was pretty awesome! Oh, and did I mention that one of my fossils might be radioactive?
One of the Zoo Lights was this tiger, but I'm pretty sure he's supposed to go around something a little thicker....
I was talking to Dr. Bob today at the museum, and we were talking about fossil hunting in Texas, chiefly the fossils that I got down there when we went to visit my gramma last Christmas, as well as the fossil dig-site that he has down there. As we were talking, I thought back to the fossilized wood (top picture, the thing with the penny on it and everything to the right and above that piece) that I had picked up in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, on one of the first nights of our trip. I had never been able to figure out what formation or what geologic time period it came from, so I asked Dr. Bob. He said that there are a lot of different aged rocks from throughout the Mesozoic Era (the time of the dinosaurs), from the Triassic to the Cretaceous. Then, as a sidenote, he mentioned that some of the fossilized wood down there tends to be radioactive, sometimes dangerously so. Well then! I am currently sorting this out, but I feel like I don't really have enough to worry about. Famous last words, right?
Last night on Primos we didn't get any stupid little kids trying to
steal the camera, and we also unfortunately didn't get any foxes, but we
did get not one, not three, but TWO visits from a skunk last night! I
have absolutely no idea if the skunks were the same, or whether they
were two completely different skunks. Another, but slightly less
alternative, is that there was a whole band of the little, sometimes
stinky creatures, and they were all taking turns on jumping into the
camera every 13 or so seconds. (The camera takes 5 pictures in about
two or three seconds for every activation of the motion sensor, and then
waits another ten seconds before it will again activate). Again, this
hypothesis is slightly less likely, but not impossible. So enjoy these
pictures of the skunk/two skunks/band of skunks! I also nabbed a
picture of the "Least Concern" Steller's jay, a very attractive type of
jay (hey, what Jay isn't?) native to the coniferous forests in and west
of the Rocky Mountains in North America.
The Steller's jay is quite an
interesting little creature, for many different reasons, so let's take a
little look-see, shall we? Let's start off with what I believe to easily be the most interesting tidbit of Steller's jay facts: it will mimic hawks! The Steller's jay is omnivorous, eating about two-thirds plants, and the other third meat. So when other birds are at an area where the Steller's jay wishes to feed, it will imitate the cry of the red-tailed hawk, or the red-shouldered hawk. This, of course, would startle the other animals and cause them to flee, leaving the area devoid of competition from most other animals. According to my bird book, the blue jay also "imitates hawks expertly." Another excellent example of avian mimicry!
The Steller's jay is also the provincial bird of British Columbia, in Canada, and is named for the Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German naturalist who first discovered the bird in 1741. I wonder whether anyone ever told him that he spelled "George" wrong....
Steller has had numerous animals named after him, including: the Steller's sea cow (an extinct relative of the manatee), the Steller's sea lion, the Steller's sea eagle, and the Steller's eider (which is a type of duck). He did much of his work in Russia, but is also considered to be a "pioneer of Alaskan natural history." What a bro!
Today, my friend Mona Kamath and I went out to find some birds of prey along a little side road off of Marshall Road between Boulder and Superior in Colorado. We saw an abundance of them on this trip, perhaps more than on any other trip. The only other trips that I can remember that could rival this one were one where I saw red-tailed hawks, kestrels, and turkey vultures, and another one where I saw red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, and a golden eagle.
Today, we were rewarded with not one, but two golden eagles! Below are some pictures taken by both me and Mona.
We also saw a number of turkey vultures circling overhead, and a pair of them perched on a fence nearby. However, by far the most exciting vulture spot of the day was when a juvenile turkey vulture landed right behind us! I stopped the car and Mona was able to snap a few pics. Not quite as exciting as the time a few weeks ago when I was on this road, and saw a pair of turkey vultures and a bunch of magpies fighting over the remains of a small carcasses, maybe thirty feet from my car! Note how similar the juvenile turkey vulture looks compared to black vulture adults.
I also saw a bird of prey perched upon a lamp post in the middle of Superior. I don't know what kind it is, so if anyone can help me out with that, that would be awesome! Anyways, here are a few pics of it:
One of my most favorite bird of prey moments on this road was perhaps a month or two ago when I saw a pair of hawks flying along calmly next to each other, and then they suddenly locked talons. I'm not positive, but I believe that it might have been a courtship display!
