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Category Archives: owls

Burrowing Owls

The birding highlight at Malheur NWR may have been seeing Burrowing Owls. It’s been years since I’ve seen them. We saw two pairs. One pair was too distant for good photos. We did observe them exchanging food or maybe something else and also an attempt at copulation. The other pair had a burrow very near the gravel road so we were able to view and photograph them from the car.

In some of these images, you can see the male, the lighter one, attempt to give the female a gift. We decided it was a piece of watermelon rind. She was not impressed and retreated to the burrow and he dropped it and stomped on it! Males are lighter because they spend more time outside the burrow and their feathers get sun bleached.

Seasons are Changing

Two days ago, the girls and I took a road trip to visit Spring. And a little bit of Winter. Our, well my, main goal was to see a Snowy Owl and I managed to do that after one hundred miles of driving. The girls’ main goal was to walk on dirt instead of ice. They managed to do quite a bit of that and enjoyed all the smells of wet dirt and early spring. The snow had just melted in parts of Douglas County and left moist ground, sometime just plain mud, and water all over the place. Water was laying in wheat fields, crossing roads, pouring over coulee walls. Oh, and it was cold enough that much of it was ice-covered.

Sadly, much of what we saw was burned down to dirt in last Labor Day’s Pearl Hill wildfire. Much of the ash has already blown away or been washed away. The vast landscapes look barren with little sagebrush remaining. I had hoped for a few Spring birds but there was nowhere for them to perch or take cover.

The skies were incredibly blue. The snow-covered mountains on the horizons were lovely. Sunshine warmed us. The coulee walls were lit up with lichens. We enjoyed walking on dirt and getting away from our ice and snow-covered world at home.

Snowy Owl with Moses Mountain in the background to the north
And to the west, the snow-covered central Cascades
Most of the big coulee burned last Labor Day. It’s painful to see.
Possibly rabbitbrush
Rock Pigeons caught the sunlight as they soared around the coulee walls
This trail used to go through head high sagebrush

I saw 54 bird species scattered over numerous habitats. Nothing rare. They were:

Canada Goose

Tundra Swan

American Wigeon

Mallard

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Greater Scaup

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Wild Turkey

California Quail

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

American Coot

Common Loon

Great Blue Heron

Golden Eagle

Northern Harrier

Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

Snowy Owl

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Northern Shrike

Steller’s Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Horned Lark

Black-capped Chickadee

Pygmy Nuthatch

American Dipper

Varied Thrush

European Starling

House Sparrow

House Finch

Pine Siskin

American Goldfinch

Song Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Western Meadowlark

Red-winged Blackbird

Northern Pygmy Owl

Last month, as we longed for 2020 to end, I was inspired to put up a 2020 Christmas tree in the snow. It was a dead, burned pine from the 2014 fire. It had finally fallen over and I dragged it home through the snow and set it up where I could see it from the house. I even put a few decorations on it. It still stands out there. We also had a lovely evergreen inside the house.

Two days ago, as the dogs and I returned from a walk, I noticed something new in my tree. Not any bigger than my fist, it was a Northern Pygmy Owl. We were going to have to walk near it to get in the house and I was surprised that it didn’t leave its perch even though we were barely social distancing. My camera was inside ready for this moment. I have seen a pygmy owl here a couple of times in the last month and had hoped for a good opportunity to photograph it. Many others are seeing them here in the valley. I wonder if there is a bit of a pygmy owl irruption this winter? Last year I did not see any. Yesterday I saw one from the ski trail and couple weeks ago, I saw one while walking in the hills across the valley.

I saw it again late yesterday afternoon as dense fog rolled in. It was perched in a live pine with a fine view of the bird feeders. These tiny owls generally weigh less than 2 1/2 ounces and are ferocious predators, sometimes taking California Quail and Northern Flickers. The Cornell Lab has more info on Northern Pygmy Owls here.

My 2020 Christmas tree