I’ve been looking for the Oriole that had been seen for the last 2 days but no luck. The feeders seem to be almost empty so the homeowner may be gone or just not filling them.
If you look for the Oriole please post to to IBLE whether you saw or didn’t see the bird. Thanks.
Denise Hughes Caldwell, Idaho
The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum. -George Bernard Shaw
RL and Jason found a group of cormorants (including the two Neotropic) on the rocks in the river near the golf course clubhouse earlier today. Right after we joined them a double crested cormorant harassed the neotropics and they took off down river. More details on eBird.
In the past hour, sitting on my patio, I’ve had perhaps 30 Western Tanagers move through. I’ve casually seen many — probably a couple dozen — in walking my dog around my neighborhood today (Depot area, Boise). It happens every year, and I always enjoy it.
Also — a female Anna’s Hummingbird at my feeder. I’ve seen them here in late fall, but never spring.
Hello all – I found one neotropic cormorant along the auger falls road (by twin falls) just now. The pin on my Ebird report is where you can see the bird from the River. You have to walk down a steep little trail to the river ( if it stays in the same place). The river is hard to see because of thick brush along the road. I just stopped everywhere that there was a little trail or I could see the river to look for it on the big river rocks. Didn’t find it yesterday but it’s there today. I will measure half how far it is from the end of the pavement when I head back home home and send that information.
“Though Ospreys mainly eat live fish of a wide variety of species, the types of prey they might catch are quite diverse. Snakes, birds, frogs, reptiles, mammals, crustaceans, and other invertebrates can all fall prey to the deft, sharp talons of an Osprey.”
I agree with Dave (although with much less experience!). It’s always interesting and valuable to report observations such as this.
This passage from the osprey account in Birds of the World (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) is relevant:
”
Anecdotal observations of Ospreys with non-fish prey include birds, snakes, voles, squirrels, muskrats (Ondatra zibethica), salamanders, molluscs, and even a small alligator (Alligator mississippiensis; Wiley and Lohrer 1973, Proctor 1977, Thorpe and Boddham 1977, Castrale and McCall 1983, Taylor 1986d, King 1988, Poole 1989a, Pawloski 1996, Watermolen 1996, Douglass 1997, Jennings 2010). An Osprey was observed foraging by walking along the ground and sallying out 2 m to capture ground squirrels (Citrellus sp.; Werren and Peterson 1988). Known to drop conch shells on to hard surface to extract mollusc inside (Jennings 2010).
Some of these reports include non-fish taken in water, probably using
typical foraging techniques (e.g., alligator, muskrat) and emphasizing
the generalist nature of Osprey predation while hunting over water.
Other reports may result from Ospreys trimming their nests with skeletal
remains and thus not represent prey taken (e.g., remains of birds found
in nests in Arabia were up to size of Socotra Cormorant (Phalacrocorax nigrogularis) and Slender-billed Gull (Larus genei), but unclear how or if these were definitely caught by Osprey (Jennings 2010).
Bad weather (high winds, choppy or turbid water) or early arrival on
breeding grounds (when lakes are frozen) may promote such behavior;
e.g., feeding on dead and dying fish tossed on the ice by fishermen in
Georgian Bay of Lake Huron (Ewins and Cousineau 1994).”
Cornell’s Birds of the World states that the Osprey diet is 99% fish. It doesn’t mention what else Ospreys eat (I just skimmed the article) but that other 1% could be birds and small mammals.
Denise Hughes
Caldwell, Idaho
The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum. -George Bernard Shaw
I periodically have watched Osprey cams and in a particular year – I think it was the Hellsgate nest in Montana. The chicks died because the male couldn’t fish the river right next to the nest. It was too high, dark brown, full of silt. The chicks died. Why wouldn’t an Osprey in this situation hunt for something else? I have seen references to the fact that Osprey will hunt other things besides fish – couldn’t cite where at this point.
I don’t know if there is anything similar in the literature for Ospreys, but having spent much of my career studying raptor foraging ecology, I have noted such surprises reasonably often.
In a long-term raptor study in Guatemala, for example, long-ago BSU grad student Megan Parker found one pair of Laughing Falcons, which are nearly absolute snake specialists, to take a few fish (they were nesting along a lake shore). I’ve always suspected that “fishy locomotion” appears somewhat similar to serpentine locomotion. This pair also took a huge beetle grub, arguably also somewhat snaky-looking.
In a more surprising case, a Black Hawk-eagle was witnessed eating raccoon feces. This species generally took mostly mammals including nearly half bats, which they brought to nests throughout the day-light hours. Both the diurnal bat-catching (clearly from their roosting sites) and feeding on stationary raccoon feces suggested to us they may have used olfactory cues in foraging.
Bottom line, even species that are generally dietary specialists tend to behave more opportunistically at times.
You might consider publishing this as a note in one of the bird journals, as it does seem likely this may be fairly uncommon. I wonder if the Osprey account in Bent’s life histories has anything similar?
Dave Whitacre
Home of Idaho Birding and the Idaho Bird Records Committee
