Nevada Bird Count 2015, the Wrap-Up, Part 2

Continuing with crew highlights from their season, Dan wrote:

While Ned and I were in Tahoe our first weekend, I hiked around an area of upper Truckee river road near south lake Tahoe. It was chilly, early in the morning, so decided to scope out some trees and see what birds were around.  While walking through a small patch of aspen trees, I spotted a tiny lump on a branch. Upon closer inspection I found it to be a northern pygmy owl tearing the head off a lizard almost twice the length of itself! I was able to watch it for almost a good hour while it sat and stared at me, gnawing occasionally on the dismembered lizard.   To top it off, it also was a life bird for me, so it was really neat to have seen it up close.

Looking back on it, I suppose I should have woken Ned up to see it, but he just looked too comfy sleeping in his hammock. Oh well. You snooze, you lose!

Alan shared:

For me one of the distinctive feature of this field season was being in an area with so many of the "classic" breeding birds of North America. In Florida we don't have many of the most iconic North American species staying to breed. Some of these species include Song Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, Chipping Sparrows and American Robins. Most of my other field jobs have also been fairly far south and have lacked these species as breeders or only had them in small numbers. I enjoyed finally being able to see so many of these "normal" birds on their breeding grounds. 

Mark finished:

One thing that has always been on my birding bucket list was to find an active Northern Goshawk nest. While most raptors don’t like it when people wander too close to their nest, goshawks are known to be particularly aggressive, causing the interloper to duck to avoid getting a pair of talons to the scalp. Whether a wise wish or not, I got to check off this experience in the Toiyabes at the end of the field season.     

I was finishing my loop of scouting an atlas square for the next morning’s survey, making my way down the hillside towards the woods, when I heard the unmistakable, loud, “keek keek keek” of a goshawk. Scanning around I then saw the bird, an adult, flying out of the trees and coming straight for me! It passed over fairly high and landed in the trees behind me, still screaming. I had only seen adult goshawks a few times before and was really excited to get such a great view! But even better, with this one so agitated I knew immediately what it meant and started exploring the woods for their nest. During my search the bird, a male, continued to make passes at me. Most of which were high enough to avoid too much worry (but still enough to keep me on my toes), but one was too close for comfort and I ducked to avoid him. I eventually found a nest with the larger female perched nearby, but could not see anything in the nest. Since it was late in the season it seemed likely the young had fledged, but I was surprised that the adults were still defending the area.

Upon returning to camp I discovered that other members of the crew had seen a young goshawk near 2 empty nests on either side of a trail nearby. So the goshawks had been successful, and must have been defending the area where their young were hanging out. 

The next morning I headed back to the square for my survey, and followed the trail carefully towards the nests. Once I got close, the male immediately started calling again and made a few passes over me. Like the day before, the female was sitting near one of the nests, and as I got close she flew towards me as well. It was the only time she did, but she made it a good one, and I had to drop to my knees to avoid her. The male then escorted me on my way, screaming the whole time, until he felt I was more than far enough from their territory. The rest of the morning was very productive, and I found many other confirmed breeders as I wandered back and forth across the square. But any time those wanderings brought me within about 150m of the nest site, it wasn’t long before I would hear the screams of the male as he came to let me know my presence was unwanted.

It was a real privilege to such a close encounter with these incredible predators, and definitely one of the highlights of my season with the NBC.