Now is the time to see porcupines in the bosque, before budding leaves make them virtually impossible to spot.

Morning bird surveys along the river yield some incredible sights.

The quilt retreat is this weekend and here is your sneak peek at the design. Stay tuned for photos of the quilt top next week.

High numbers of Snowy Owls are being reported throughout the upper U.S. this winter. This irruption, not to be confused with an eruption, is not thought to be caused by a lack of food. Rather, an abundance of lemmings, one of the primary prey for the Snowy Owl in Arctic regions, led to the production of a bumper crop of young owls in the summer of 2011. These owls, not as skilled at hunting as their parents, have flown south in high numbers in search of winter food.

Two of our members traveled to parts north to photograph Snowies, David Powell to Montana, and Doug Brown to Washington. We thank them both for sharing their images of Snowy Owls. Watch for a blog post about Gail and Sam Sanborn’s successful northerly owl quest.

Links to Media Coverage on the Irruption:
Video from Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Time Magazine: Hedwig, Is That You? Snowy Owls Apparate into the U.S.
Huffington Post: Snowy Owl Migration: Birds Moving From Arctic to Central U.S. in Search of Food
The New York Times: Bird-Watchers Revel in Unusual Spike in Snowy Owl Sightings
Video from MSNBC: Snowy Owls Swoop in from the Arctic
NBC Chicago: Injured Snowy Owl Released Back into Wild

Ferruginous Hawks often appear to be white from below, especially when they are in flight. Juveniles have white leggings, while adults have rufous leggings. They are found only in the grasslands of the American West. Tony Thomas and Chellye Porter captured this image of a juvenile Ferruginous Hawk at Bosque del Apache NWR the week of December 26. Ferruginous Hawks are notoriously difficult to photograph and we thank them for sharing!

One of the newest members of our education team is a very large Common Raven. While impossible to confirm the sex of the raven without a blood test, but because this raven is on the large side of average we believe he is male. Until and unless he lays an egg, we are calling him a He. He was hatched in the spring of 2011, and was shot shortly after he learned to fly. He was found in downtown Santa Fe with an injured wing and was taken to The Wildlife Center in Espanola. X-rays revealed pellets lodged in the left humerus, close to the elbow, and a chipped ulna. Unfortunately, the wing did not recover full dexterity and he will never be able to fly.

Because he was so young when he was injured, Raven has adapted well to life in captivity. Here, he is tending to some feathers on his wing. Raven also recently completed his first outreach event at the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR. He has been living indoors but work is under way to build a new flight cage, or mews, which will enable him to live outside in his own space. According to his trainer, he is like a toddler – happy when entertained, least happy when he bored. A routine day includes spending time with his trainer, jumping from perch to perch, watching birds come and go from the feeder outside, watching movies in the evening, splashing water, and preening. As an omnivore, he enjoys a varied diet. While he likes eggs, his favorite food is mice which he consumes with gusto, saving the tail for last.

We are thrilled to have this very important bird and he is an asset to our education programs. When we show him in class, everyone, young and old alike, falls in love with him. We tell children that he will never be free because of a thoughtless human and ask what they think about that. It is a serious and thought provoking “teaching moment”. In addition, presenting him alongside Indigo, our educational American Crow, will clearly show how the two species differ.

I watched a hawk within 30 feet of me forage on corn for thirty minutes. There is no question in my mind that I saw this hawk foraging on the corn. As far as I have ever known, hawks are strictly meat eaters. It is appreciable that the hawk was doing its best to survive; however, the temp was 52 degrees and I saw many squirrels, mice or moles, turkeys and numerous song birds, all of which seemed readily available. Has this hawk been imprinted in a fashion? The hawk was not selecting pebbles/gravel to assist in digestion as I witnessed corn falling from its beak as it cracked it and foraged on its remnants. Are you aware of similar circumstances? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

This sighting was on the December 9, 2011. The temp was 52 degrees at 0810 a.m. and I was approximately 100 miles from the Atlantic Coast in North Carolina. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

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Juvenile raptors, particularly Northern Harriers, will ‘play’ with corn cob pieces in fields after the harvest. They are not eating the corn but will harry the field then drop down as if capturing a meadow vole, and go through behavior motor sequence of taloning, dispatching and biting. They will fly off with the piece, sometimes drop it and ‘recapture’ it. They seem to enjoy this behavior which is most common in the fall of the year. They select cobs that are broken in pieces about the size of a meadow vole.

This harrying-capture-kill motor sequence is, perhaps, part of a developmental phase as they perfect their hunting style or technique. Since animals learn adaptive strategies and also learn from one another, it is possible that they do this for fun at times when the prey base is sufficient and they can afford the metabolic cost….the act of practicing hunting skills outweighs the metabolic cost. It can easily look like the hawks are hunting and eating corn! We also have observed juvenile Cooper’s Hawk catching, killing, and shredding pine cones as they hone their hunting prowess.

Red-billed gull or tarāpunga (Larus novaehollandiae)

This variable oystercatcher/tōrea-pango (Haematopus unicolor) was photographed on Stewart Island, New Zealand. More on oystercatchers. Chatham Island oystercatchers.

The winner of the 2011 Raffle Quilt is Judy Verzino, from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a quilter and is very excited to be its new owner.