Baby Crows

Crow on eggs - May 4th.

 A crow's nest is a term almost everyone has heard. For hundreds of years the phrase has been used to describe a lookout point high above a ship. A place to watch for approaching danger. Fittingly, there may be no other species on earth which watches for danger as devotedly as crows. None the less, one of the most dangerous times in the lives of young crows are the days they spend in the nest.

The parents do everything in their power to defend their young. Sometimes they will even attack people who are simply passing by. Usually, crows' nests are well hidden, especially when large deciduous leaves fill the branches above the nest. 

Before this Spring, I had never even glimpsed inside an active nest. I am especially grateful to my friend, Whitney, and my new friends, Emily and Bryony, for providing access which enabled a brief weekly observation of this nest.

The first hatchling - May 11th 

When I glanced into the nest all I saw were the beautifully speckled eggs. I was surprised that the color of the eggs was not more similar to twigs and sticks of the nest. The color did virtually nothing to hide the eggs from prying eyes. 

Ever so slightly, an egg shifted. I wondered if I really saw movement. Was it just my camera which shifted in my grasp. A moment later, I saw the hint of a little pink foot and then abruptly a young bird's head flopped into view. 

Hatchlings hoping for food - May 17th - Day 6

Six days later the egg shells were gone. Two young birds remained. Obviously stronger, they were now holding their heads up. Their eyes were still closed and their bare skin was now grey-brown with highlights of pink. The colors of the young birds were definitely less obvious than the eggs had been. Their most notable parts were the bright red mouths. It was hard to imagine them being any more defenseless than when they were blindly begging for food. 

By the way, this may be one of the few times you get to see crow's ears or at least the holes which they apparently hear through.

This particular nest tree was rather small with surprisingly little foliage overhead. With great regularity gulls could be heard and seen as they negotiated the wind currents above the nest. I had serious doubts about the survival of the nestlings.

 Hatchlings with early feathering  - May 24th - Day 13

At almost two weeks of age, the bird on the left appeared to be opening its eyes, ever so slightly. The bare pink skin of their bodies was now hidden. Feathers were beginning to grow. The most consistent part of their appearance was still their gaping red mouths. Appropriately, the joint where the upper and lower bills meet is called, The Gape.

Young Crows - June 1st - Day 20

In their third week the young birds were identifiable as crows. They no longer looked naked, however their feathers were still not sufficient for flight. The larger bird might even have been showing some awareness of the world beyond the nest.

Young Crows - June 8th - Day 27

By the fourth week, the young birds were certainly aware of the life outside the nest. Their feathers now covered their bodies and heads in all the right places. Soon they would be able to fly. By the next visit a week later, the nest was empty.

Over the next few days Emily and Bryony saw the parents feeding the young in the general area somewhat near the nest. Much to my surprise, the young survived the threat of passing gulls and other predatory birds, in spite of their relatively 'open air' nest.

While I cannot be sure if I found one of these new fledglings, I did find a crow of a similar age. The young bird was highly inquisitive.

However, it did not appear to be having much luck at finding its own food.

In addition to the young bird's behavior and its feathers being not quite as black as an adult, this photo shows two or three other characteristics which indicates the bird's youth. 

When your parents are bringing you all your food and keeping an eye out for danger you can close your eyes and work to your heart's content on preening and cleaning your new feathers.

It would not surprise me if new feathers growing all over your body, while pushing older feathers out of the way, might create an itch or two and a need to scratch.

At one point the young bird got a hold of one of the small feathers it had removed. It looked like the crow was attempting to set the feather down on the branch. But sadly the moment it let lose of the feather, the wind gathered it up and took it away.

The young crow seemed to have a wistful look in its eye as it watched the feather disappear over the waters of the bay.

Curiosity is certainly a sign of intelligence. If the current batch of young crows can survive the next few weeks, their odds of survival will continue to increase. They need to stay out of the grasp of predatory birds like the adult Barred Owl mentioned in the post two weeks ago. They also need to learn to stay out of the way of automobiles. Life in the city certainly has positive and negative challenges.

 

Watching the antics of young crows over the next few weeks could be very entertaining for us, even though it may mean life and death for them. Binoculars will be very helpful in identifying them because they are already nearly the same size as their hard working parents. 

Keys to identifying young crows include, being fed by another crow, exhibiting a high level of curiosity, having a red gape, having a blue-gray iris, losing small downy feathers and possibly even scratching a lot.

Take a look at the following two photos and see if you can figure out which one is the adult and which one is a new fledgling. Both birds have their nictitating membrane closed, which covers their eyes when they are potentially exposed to some type of irritation.

A)

B)

 The key difference is the hint of a pink gape in the second photo.

Even here, from this rather odd angle, the pinkish red gape is apparent, which implies this is a young bird and not yet a parent.

Have great day on Union Bay...where nature lives in the city!

Larry

Going Native:

Without a well-funded Environmental Protection Agency, it falls to each of us to be ever more vigilant in protecting our local environments. Native plants and trees encourage the largest diversity of lifeforms because of their long intertwined history with our local environment and native creatures. I have been told that even the microbes in the soil are native to each local landscape. My hope is that we can inspire ourselves, our neighbors and local businesses to respect native flora and to support native wildlife at every opportunity. I have learned that our most logical approach to native trees and plants (in order of priority) should be to:

1) Learn and leave established native flora undisturbed.
2) Remove invasive species and then wait to see if native plants begin to grow without assistance. (If natives plants start on their own, then these plants or trees are likely the most appropriate flora for the habitat.)
3) Scatter seeds from nearby native plants in a similar habitat.
4) If you feel you must add a new plant then select a native plant while considering how the plant fits with the specific habitat and understanding the plant's logical place in the normal succession of native plants.

My intention in my weekly post is to include at least one photo each week and visually challenge us to know the difference between native and non-native lifeforms.

Is this flowering plant native to the Pacific Northwest?

***************

Scroll down for the answer

***************

Common Vetch:

I am not 100% positive on this identification but I suspect it is Common Vetch, which is not a Northwest native. Please feel free to let me know if your knowledge of the plant exceeds my own. Also, I must admit I was out of town some this week, so this particular plant was photographed in Port Townsend. 

Update:

I received a number of varied and interesting responses regarding the identity of this plant. The follow email from Tom Brown gives a new perspective. Both he and I would love to know if anyone has more detailed knowledge. Thank you!

Larry,

Thank-you so much for your posts.  I’ve been following them for, gosh, years now!

I send this with a disclaimer....I am not a botanist.  I am just someone who spends an inordinate amount of time looking at wildflowers, taking pictures of wildflowers,  and trying to identify them.  Some people do birds.  Some people do wildflowers.

My favorite sources are Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest by Turner and Gustafson, and the Burke Herbarium Image Collection: http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.php.  The image collection is amazing!

Pea vs Vetch:  Very confusing.  If you go to the image collection website you can find 15 different “peas” in the Genus Lathyrus.  You can also find 8 vetch in the Genus Vicia.  I compared L. latifolius and V. salvia to your picture.  The number of flowers on the leaf axils in your picture (5 – 15) match up with L. latifolius while V. salvia has only 1 to 3 on the axil.   In addition, the two leaflet structure in L. latifolius appears to match your picture. 

So I think that instead of common vetch you have a picture of perennial or everlasting pea..........both nonnative.

Thanks again for your posts.  You have helped to inspire me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined.  I just downloaded the Merlin Bird ID App.  It got the red breasted nuthatch right the first try! 

Tom Brown

***************

The Email Challenge:

Over the years I have had many readers tell me that Google is no longer sending them email announcements regarding my posts. Even more frustrating when they go to 're-sign-up', hoping that will enable them to once again start receiving the announcements, they get a message which says 'Sorry, you are already signed up.' Google has not responded to my requests for help with this issue. 

My functional work around is to setup my own email list and each week I manually send out a new post announcement. If you are experiencing the issue and would like to be added to my personal email list please send me an email requesting to be added. Thank you for your patience!

My email address is LDHubbell@comcast.net

*********************

A Father's Pride

Behind this beautiful young pileated woodpecker we see a hint of his hard working father searching for food. For all that separates humans and birds, we still have a surprising number of similarities.

This young bird took his first flight earlier this week. Unlike the owlet which we saw in last week's post, Pileated Woodpeckers take to the air with ease. Although I do suspect their parents sometimes withhold a little food to encourage them to make that initial leap. It would be much easier for the parents to find, feed and protect their young if they simply stayed in the nest, but the critical skills the young birds need can only be learned by observing their parents in the real world.

As they leave the nest, the endurance of the young bird's may be questionable. Also, knowing how to fly does not imply a complete knowledge of landing. They do start out with an innate ability to land vertically. They can latch onto the side of a tree without a hitch. However, a couple of years ago I watched one really struggle with a landing on pavement. It did a belly flop and then struggled to its feet. (This time of year, young innocent birds can be easily damaged by normally harmless pets - especially if Fido is off leash.)

While the young bird incessantly begged for food, Chip worked non-stop, excavating beetles, ants and their larva from decomposing logs. The comparatively pale crest on the young bird is an obvious sign of his youth, not to mention his diminutive size.

Not only is the young bird's crest much lighter than his father's, but his crest feathers are far more fluffy and downy. On adults these feathers hook together like velcro and usually look as sleek as the hair of a 1950's rock star. Also, the young bird's bill is not nearly as stained or worn as his father's. The same is true for all his feathers and virtually every other body part. From this little bird's conception until a week ago, he was inside his mother, in an egg or inside the protection of the hollowed out nest, curtesy of his father.

A young woodpecker fresh out of the nest is as close to pristine as a creature can get. No wear, no tear, no fuss or muss, perfectly equipped but mentally missing the wisdom and knowledge to survive.

For example, earlier in the week I watched him (or possibly his brother) calling loudly from this decomposing snag. By the way, I have seen both parents feeding here multiple times. With just the tiniest of effort this young bird might have found some of his own food, but apparently he still lacked the know-how.

He called so long and loud that he finally attracted a couple of American Crows. They were apparently irritable, probably from providing constant care for their own young. One of the crows dived at the youngster and even gave chase. The aggression sent the young woodpecker flying and squawking through the forest. Subsequently, his calls became a bit softer. 

This seemed like a dangerous situation or at best a harsh lesson, but compared to what a Barred Owl or a Cooper's Hawk might have done, the Crow was like a thoughtful adult chastising his neighbor's noisy offspring.

Off and on for most of March, I hunted for Chip. His absence made it obvious that he was not nest building in the same area where he and Goldie nested last year. On April second I finally found him. He was hard at work building a new nest. It was not an accidental sighting, that day I spent over four hours looking at every potential tree in the west half of their territory. I was quite relieved when I finally found him hanging from the entry way to this partially-finished nest.

Two months later, I once again found Chip at the same location, feeding his young. In this photo we can see one of the young is a male and one is not. Looking closely, you will notice that females have black foreheads. With males, the red of the crest comes continuously forward all the way down to the bill.

Chip's investment in the young is substantial. Starting sometime in March he began excavating the nest in this dead Red Alder snag. He probably spent close to a month working on the nest. After Goldie laid the eggs, Chip took turns sitting on the eggs. Plus, the males typically spend their nights incubating the eggs. Once the eggs hatched, both parents worked virtually non-stop to find food to feed the young. In addition, there was the ongoing responsibility to keep an eye on the nest to protect their progeny from predators.

A couple of week's ago when a second year Cooper's Hawk swooped in to investigate the noise of the nestlings clamoring for food, Chip immediately began calling stridently. The young knew enough to pull their heads back inside and after a few tense moments the Cooper's Hawk decided the potential reward wasn't worth the risk.

After the hawk left, Chip stationed himself on this Big Leaf Maple, and kept a close watch for quite some time. Even at this distance you can see he was agitated by the visit. He is holding his crest abnormally erect.

Here is a closer example of Chip with his crest partially erect. This was taken last week while he was securing food for the fledglings. He was rather close to a pathway with pedestrians, bikers and dogs passing by. Not doubt this explains his heightened awareness. 

At a similar distance from the path, the young bird appeared to be showing a little apprehension as well. Although I do suspect it may be harder for the young birds to get their fluffy little crests to lie down. 

This February photo, before any nesting began, shows Chip looking a bit more relaxed. His crest is laying down, giving him a more normal, slick-backed look. As the young birds grow so does their demand for food. Now, about three months after Chip started building the nest, he and his mate, Goldie, are both still feeding their young.

This is Goldie earlier this week, preparing to feed their daughter. The parents will feed any of the young, but after they leave the nest it does seem like the young of the same gender get fed a little more often. Originally I wondered if this might be a bit of bias on the part of the parents. However, it now seems to me that often the parents simply tend to feed which ever fledgling happens to be nearby. This makes me wonder if it is the young who create the perception of bias. Could it be that the young have an instinct to follow the parent of their own gender?

This little male certainly followed Chip around while Chip was finding food. Occasionally, the young bird would pick about among the leaves, but the learning process appeared fairly slow.

By the end of summer, all three young will be finding their own food. Soon after that they will stop following their parents and strike out on their own.

I am always impressed by the focus and precision of a pileated woodpecker's head and beak. The width of the beak, where it attaches to the head, must help transmit the full force of the strike. At the same time, the rapid tapering to the pointed tip must multiply the force of the impact. I may not be positive about the physics involved but the lifelong results are certainly impressive.

While Chip's hard work continued, the young bird watched, stretched and observed the non-stop foraging. After a few moments, he flew down closer to Chip, begged for food and was properly rewarded. 

I am certainly unable to read Chip's mind, but I would hope he is feeling a little pride in his offspring. This week the young have progressed from being confined inside the only home they have ever known, to following their parents and initiating their journey to independence. 

Have a great day on Union Bay...where nature lives n the city!

Larry

ps: For seven year's in a row our local pileated woodpeckers have nested in a large, old, dead or dying Red Alder trees. The bark is thin and the decaying wood is fairly soft. The first five of the seven snags have already fallen. This emphasizes how important it is to have a steady 'crop' of these trees slowly aging and dying if we want to retain pileated woodpeckers in the city.

Going Native:

Without a well-funded Environmental Protection Agency, it falls to each of us to be ever more vigilant in protecting our local environments. Native plants and trees encourage the largest diversity of lifeforms because of their long intertwined history with our local environment and native creatures. I have been told that even the microbes in the soil are native to each local landscape. My hope is that we can inspire ourselves, our neighbors and local businesses to respect native flora and to support native wildlife at every opportunity. I have learned that our most logical approach to native trees and plants (in order of priority) should be to:

1) Learn and leave established native flora undisturbed.
2) Remove invasive species and then wait to see if native plants begin to grow without assistance. (If natives plants start on their own, then these plants or trees are likely the most appropriate flora for the habitat.)
3) Scatter seeds from nearby native plants in a similar habitat.
4) If you feel you must add a new plant then select a native plant while considering how the plant fits with the specific habitat and understanding the plant's logical place in the normal succession of native plants.

My intention in my weekly post is to include at least one photo each week and visually challenge us to know the difference between native and non-native lifeforms.

Is this flowering plant native to the Pacific Northwest? Scroll down a little farther if you would like to see the flower as well as the leaves.

******************

Does this help?

Scroll on down for the answer.

***************

Oceanspray:

This Northwest native is currently flowering in many of our Union Bay parks and natural areas.

***************

The Email Challenge:

Over the years I have had many readers tell me that Google is no longer sending them email announcements regarding my posts. Even more frustrating when they go to 're-sign-up', hoping that will enable them to once again start receiving the announcements, they get a message which says 'Sorry, you are already signed up.' Google has not responded to my requests for help with this issue. 

My functional work around is to setup my own email list and each week I manually send out a new post announcement. If you are experiencing the issue and would like to be added to my personal email list please send me an email requesting to be added. Thank you for your patience!

My email address is LDHubbell@comcast.net

*********************

An Owlet Adventure

There comes a time when almost all living creatures leave home. The outside world is exotic, appealing and perilous. 

Fear may slow the process, but curiosity will win. 

 Food, shelter and predatory protection are all essential, initially.

Learning the habits of self-maintenance and cleanliness are also critical lifelong skills.

After three days of searching the sky and....

...half hearted attempts, the young owlet finally leaped. Of course, at this point it could not actually fly.

When I first spotted the owlet outside the nest it was wedged against a neighboring tree with a small branch firmly embedded under its wing. It was not moving. I feared the worst. Luckily, as I watched the owlet began to wiggle and twitch and in a few moments it freed itself and began to climb. However, it was still learning the concept of coordination and it soon found itself completely upside down. 

This angle does provide an interesting view of the rough-textured pads on the bottom side of the owlet's foot. In addition to their talons, these pads give owls a life-saving grip. Of course, the talons and pads also provide them with a life-ending grasp of their prey.

During the next few hours the owlet spent a good deal of time wandering about among small branches ten to twenty feet above the ground.

The topsy-turvy process relied a good deal on its iron grip.

One of the reasons an owlet is initially unable to fly is because its flight feathers are not fully developed. In their half-formed state the feathers are not yet capable of working together as a functional wing.

A few days later, I happened to have the chance to photograph two of the owlet's lost feathers. The upper feather in the photo looks like a flight feather which has not yet fully emerged from it's initial sheath. The lower feather resembles some of the young downy feathers which retain heat but provide no help with flight.

Update:

Just in from a wise and observant reader:

Larry,

Great photography of the owlet leaving the nest!  Isn’t that an amazing experience to witness?

A comment on your feather photo.  It may be the photo, but the upper feather in sheath looks like a crow feather to me.  Crows form a good part of the barred owl diet, and at this time of year, young crows are particularly vulnerable.  Sheathed feathers do not fall out – they are pulled out with a great deal of force required.  This particular sheathed feather appears to have been severed off above the skin, further supporting that it was at one time , barred owl food.

Thanks so much for sharing with Tweeterdom, I really enjoy your posts.

-Jamie

J. Acker

owler@sounddsl.com

Bainbridge Island, WA

 Read on and you will see why this conclusion makes a lot of sense.

Since the owlets are unable to chase down their own prey, they are totally dependent on their parents for food.

The parents not only catch the prey, they offer it to the young in bite-size pieces.

After feeding, the parents help tidy up the owlet. The term allopreening is used to describe the process of one bird cleaning another. It usually happens with mated birds, but among Barred Owls I have seen it happen between parent-and-child and even between siblings.

Clearly, this owlet is the lucky recipient of parental affection.

For the first week or so after the owlet leaves the nest, I find it interesting that they are virtually egg-shaped.

Ultimately, the body will lengthen and the tail will grow out. A more mature shape will totally destroy the egg-shaped illusion.

But in the mean time, a young owlet sure looks like a fluffy little egg to me.

As the day wore on the owlet became active again. Using talons and beak it began to climb the bark of this large Western Red Cedar.

The wings waved around and the stubbly little tail got carried along for the ride, but it was primarily the talons that kept the owlet in the tree.

Ultimately, the challenge was too much for the young bird. It fell.

When a young owlet finds itself on the ground and unable to fly it is probably the most dangerous moment in its life.

Just a week earlier, I watched two raccoons cross the trail at this exact spot. A raccoon, a coyote or even an off-leash dog would only have to grasp and shake to end the life of a young defenseless owlet. The parents would certainly swoop in and attempt to distract any such creature but they would be hard pressed to actually stop an attack.

Luckily, owlets have a strong instinct to climb.

The young bird clambered up inside a rhododendron and apparently spent the night about nine or ten feet off the ground.

In the days that followed, the young owlet steadily climbed to new heights. The second night it was probably 60 to 70 feet up in the air. 

Surprisingly, throughout this time the crows seldom bothered the young bird. At the same time, they harassed the parents mercilessly. The parents were sitting ducks. They would perch above and often on either side of the young bird and watch for approaching danger. Their stationary devotion made them easy marks for the crows. One morning while I watched the young owl, the cacophony of crows behind me grew suddenly quiet.

A moment later an adult appeared with a decapitated crow. I suddenly understood the silence.

Food is food and not to be wasted. For the young owlet, eating-crow has a very literal meaning.

On the second or third night after the owlet left the nest, I found the parents allopreening in a rhododendron fairly close to the ground.

This behavior was very different. Previously, they had been perching above the owlet and ready to swoop down on any potential predator. I could no longer find the owlet. The change in behavior made me wonder if the owlet had survived. Luckily for me, the next night a friend sent a text which simply said, 'Bobo Lives!'

During the next week Bobo's coordination steadily improved. He (or she) spent the night in many different trees but always high above the ground. Surprisingly, the parents were often stationed closer to the ground. My only logical conclusion was that they were worried about raccoons climbing the trees. Maybe they were thinking that from the lower locations they could start harassing the raccoons before the masked bandits even located the correct tree.

Sometimes I wonder if we truly knew all the dangers in life, would anyone ever leave home?

Have a great day on Union Bay...where nature lives in the city!

Larry

Going Native:

Without a well-funded Environmental Protection Agency, it falls to each of us to be ever more vigilant in protecting our local environments. Native plants and trees encourage the largest diversity of lifeforms because of their long intertwined history with our local environment and native creatures. I have been told that even the microbes in the soil are native to each local landscape. My hope is that we can inspire ourselves, our neighbors and local businesses to respect native flora and to support native wildlife at every opportunity. I have learned that our most logical approach to native trees and plants (in order of priority) should be to:

1) Learn and leave established native flora undisturbed.
2) Remove invasive species and then wait to see if native plants begin to grow without assistance. (If natives plants start on their own, then these plants or trees are likely the most appropriate flora for the habitat.)
3) Scatter seeds from nearby native plants in a similar habitat.
4) If you feel you must add a new plant then select a native plant while considering how the plant fits with the specific habitat and understanding the plant's logical place in the normal succession of native plants.

My intention in my weekly post is to include at least one photo each week and visually challenge us to know the difference between native and non-native lifeforms.

Is this flower native to the Northwest?

Scroll down for the answer.

***************

Foxglove: I believe this plant is foxglove and it is not a native to North or South America. It is reported to be extremely poisonous and also the source for digitalis which is used for heart medicine. Click Here to learn more.

***************

The Email Challenge:

Over the years I have had many readers tell me that Google is no longer sending them email announcements regarding my posts. Even more frustrating when they go to 're-sign-up', hoping that will enable them to once again start receiving the announcements, they get a message which says 'Sorry, you are already signed up.' Google has not responded to my requests for help with this issue. 

My functional work around is to setup my own email list and each week I manually send out a new post announcement. If you are experiencing the issue and would like to be added to my personal email list please send me an email requesting to be added. Thank you for your patience!

My email address is LDHubbell@comcast.net

*********************