Nature, red in tooth and claw

A few days ago, as I was working at the kitchen sink, I heard an enormous commotion out in the side yard where we have a line of willow trees. Something on the order of a dozen magpies were screeching and flapping in agitation.

I stepped outside to see if I could determine the source of their distress. And what did I see?

The magpies had built a nest in one of the willows, which I had failed to notice earlier.

A raven – not a crow, but a raven (no mistaking its size) – was in the process of raiding the nest, with all the magpies shrieking in outrage around it. As I watched, the raven flapped away with a nestling in its beak.

Gradually the magpies dispersed, and things have been quiet since. In fact, it's been so quiet that I suspect that nestling was the last one, and the raven had been there earlier for the rest of the nestlings. ("A vending machine for the raven," as Don put it.)

To be perfectly honest, I've witnessed enough brutal magpie raids of robin and bluebird nests that I'm finding it difficult to be sorry for the magpies. All members of the corvid family engage in such opportunistic behavior, some more than others, and it's never fun to watch.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Baby birds everywhere

Naturally this is the season for baby birds. And let me tell you, they're everywhere.

Let's start a few days ago when I noticed a Western Kingbird fledgling on a pile of rocks, waiting for its parents to feed it.

These are surprisingly hard birds to photograph, so I was pleased to get these shots.

Here's an adult.

Next up, a juvenile black-capped chickadee that got under our porch roof and couldn't quite find its way out for a bit. Its wings weren't the strongest, so it blundered around for a few minutes.

Here's a darling little fledgling robin (I'm a sucker for robins) that hung around inside the strawberry enclosure. Made me want to pinch his little cheek. The parents were clucking around me in alarm, so of course I didn't get any closer.

And then there are the magpies. I can't pretend to enjoy these fledglings as much. They're noisy and raucous and demanding, and they're everywhere. You can distinguish juvies from adults by the length of their tail feathers.

(Bonus photo: Here's Frumpkin watching the magpies on the roof.)

And finally, the pièce de résistance, some killdeer. Here's the parent:

S/he was shepherding around four offspring, which were moving around fairly fast. I was lucky to get all four in one photo.

Even though we have killdeer everywhere, it's rare to glimpse the babies.

That's our inventory of baby birds so far.

How the tables have turned

We have hordes of magpies around here.

This time of year, fledgings are everywhere, noisily demanding food from the parent birds. The parents will take food wherever they can find it. They're omnivorous and won't hesitate to raid the nests of other birds (such as robins) to feed their own offspring. There's a feeling of helplessness to stand on the ground and watch magpies raid a robin's nest high up in a tree and not be able to do anything about it.

Yesterday a bunch of very noisy magpie fledglings were raising a ruckus in a tree by the house. At first I didn't pay much attention because it just seemed like the normal raucous sounds magpies make.

But the cries of the birds seemed more strident than normal. I finally grabbed the camera and went outside. And what did I see?

I saw a hawk fly from one tree to another, a fledgling magpie in its talons.

The parent birds swarmed around the hawk, but I'm sure the baby was dead by then. It happened so fast I couldn't get photos of the hawk.

My, how the tables have turned. It's not often the magpies get raided. Usually they're the raiders.

Nature red in tooth and claw.

Move over, Snow White

No photos of the actual event, so use your imagination.

I went out to water the strawberries yesterday evening. We have two startup strawberry beds enclosed by horse panels reinforced with deer fencing.

For such start-up plants, they're doing very well and I'm regularly picking fat ripe berries.

A couple evenings ago, I was picking strawberries when I heard a small "thump" right nearby. It was a young magpie who landed on the fence surrounding the berry beds. The cheeky bird was no more than a few feet away from me, making the odd squeaky calls of the juveniles.

"Oh no you don't," I told him. "These are my strawberries."

The magpie was completely unperturbed by my proximity. I continued picking strawberries and got closer and closer to it. It just sat there and squeaked at me. When I was no more than two feet away, I straightened up and we were nearly eye to eye. He continued to just sit there and squeak at me.

So I leaned down and picked a past-prime leathery strawberry. Then I reached over and literally put it in the magpie's beak. He very gently took the berry, paused for a moment, then flapped over to the top of the woodpile, where he spent about five minutes chuckling over it and eating it.

Move over, Snow White.

Cat vs. magpies vs. vole

Early one morning, Don looked out our kitchen window and saw one of the neighbor's cats in our pasture.

This is nothing unusual, as the pasture appears to be rich hunting grounds for the cats. Frankly they're welcome to take all the mice they want.

But what caught Don's attention wasn't the cat per se, but the proximity of the cat to a pair of magpies (only one of which I could capture in the same frame as the cat).

"Look how close together they are," he commented. We watched as the mapgies stalked around the disgruntled-looking cat.

But soon it became apparent there was more to this little drama than met the eye.

Can you see what the magpie sees?

Let me enlarge it for you.

That's a vole on the left, right in front of the magpie.

Sadly the vole knew exactly what lay in store for it. There was no escaping the magpie's beak; and if there was, the cat was right there to finish it off.

Meanwhile, look at the cat's expression. We missed the opening scenes of this drama, but we speculate it's the cat who flushed out the vole, and then the magpies took over. The cat wisely knew it would be dangerous to try and attack the magpies, and he looks very annoyed that his breakfast was stolen.

I don't know if the vole was injured by this point, but it hardly mattered. It was doomed. Magpies are vicious killers.

Here's the second magpie, moving in for the kill.

A direct attack on the vole wasn't long in coming.

At this point the vole (located between the two magpies) was still alive.

But the magpies kept flipping it around, doubtless injuring it more with each flip.

I felt very sorry for the vole, let me tell you.

It was hard to tell, but it seemed this was the killer blow.

Victory dance?

With the vole dead, it was never clear if or how the magpies shared the feast. I suspect there was no sharing. Magpies don't have that much altruism in their shrunken little hearts.

After the magpies had departed with their loot, the cat hung around a bit longer, no doubt hoping for another vole to show up.

Interestingly, long after the cat had departed, we noticed a lot of magpies hanging around the same general vicinity. Must be a lot of voles up there.

Just a little slice of life in north Idaho. Or in the case of the vole, a slice of death. Ain't nature grand?

Walking

We enjoy walking. In our last home, it was a nice solid three-mile round trip walk to the mailboxes, and I miss that. Here in our new place, even though we're farther out, there are fewer places to walk. Go figure.

The problem is exacerbated by dogs. We're kinda hemmed in by some scattered neighbors whose dogs are not yarded (if you know what I mean), and it makes for some exciting encounters on the road whenever we have Mr. Darcy with us.

So Don and I got on Google Earth and started tracing road paths from dog to dog ('scuse me, from boundary to boundary) measured from our house, to figure out how many times we'd have to cover the same ground to achieve a nice solid three mile walk.

Once that was determined, we began incorporating afternoon walks into our daily repertoire, especially now that the snow is releasing and walking no longer requires cleats on our boots. (Walking three miles in cleats would be exhausting.)

Walking allows us to observe our environment far more acutely, both the large and the small components. Here's some of the things we've seen.

Deer tracks across a north-facing slope.

A solitary deer in a field.

Further away, three others watched.

The doe moved to join her companions...

...then the whole group moved to a safer distance.

The snow is retreating from this outcrop of rocks.

A freshly dozed section of road from an industrious neighbor working to fix potholes.

A dead grass head from last summer. Soon enough we'll have multitudes of fresh green grass.

A large tuft of soft underfeathers caught on some barbed wire. There were also feathers on the ground beneath. Trying to interpret what happened, it almost seems like an owl caught some feathers on the fencing while dive-bombing a rodent. Hard to say, but these feathers have the look of an owl's downy feathers adapted for silent flight. Just a guess.

Elk hoof print.

A cheeky magpie.

Late afternoon sun through some ridgeline trees.

Sun on a mossy embankment.

The moss's new growth glistened so brightly, it was almost fluorescent.

Turkeys. Heavens, we've been seeing turkeys. Enormous flocks of them.

My scarf, which I snagged on a convenient branch when I got too warm. I'm famous for shedding clothing as I walk. Our old neighbors used to be able to monitor my progress by keeping track of what outer clothing I'd shucked off and hung on fence posts and bushes.

A neighbor's small stock pond, still frozen because it's tucked in a shadowy north-facing draw.

Pheasants. We're starting to see more of them.They're skittish birds and hard to photograph (especially while walking an upland bird dog on a leash.)

An old wasp nest on a neighbor's mailbox. Must have been exciting when it was active.

A mere fraction of a neighbor's chicken population, which she describes as "too many."

And one escapee.

Some fog wisping through the hills after a slushy day.

Yes, walking is the best possible way to observe the world around us, in my opinion.