Happy Halloween week! Today’s treats include a meteor shower, a splish-splash eagle bath, and a fox squirrel stealing a pileated woodpecker’s snacks…the naughty trickster! This week, we’re looking forward to nestorations, Flyway and North Nest arrivals and departures, especially on Wednesday when the warm southerly wind finally changes direction, and more sightings of our North Nest neighbors. The warm extended fall makes it feel like summer, but the north nest neighbors are clearly preparing for winter and – in the case of deer – feeling the rut. Look and listen for bald eagles, coyotes, barred owls, rabbits, white-tailed deer, and birds local and migratory at all of our nests.
October 25, 2024: DNF in the North Nest
Thank you so much for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring!
Decorah North
The Norths have been around, but not especially visible from our cameras. Our camera operators heard them vocalizing at interlopers, spotted them in the nest on Sunday morning, and noted coyotes, barred owls, deer, a meteor shower, and a squirrel moving into the basement of DNN. Bald eagles are beginning to migrate and strong southerly winds might be holding interloper down in the vicinity of the nest until the weather is more favorable for moving on. BirdCast shows a low migration forecast for the next three nights, while Weather Underground shows prevailing winds switching to WNW on Halloween. That might make for good departure conditions – something Mr. North and DNF will surely welcome!
October 25, 2024: Where’s DNF? The play of shadows and light make her surprisingly hard to see. I don’t tend to think of eagles as cryptic, but she’s not her usual visible self!
October 28, 2024: A little morning meteor shower – https://youtu.be/GjgxEgvJTrI?si=5BK8inwsJbdAQifF. I’m so glad that GA Bear made a video of the meteor shower! Seeing the meteors takes a little patience, but expand your video to enlargen the details and try to watch the entire sky! There is an especially nice meteor around 28 seconds and a fun low meteor at 56 seconds. Good luck seeing them!
October 25, 2024: It was a busy day for North Nest neighbors. This female Northern Cardinal was foraging for multiflora berries near the North nest – a plant I detest but small birds love!
October 25, 2024: DNF & Mr North bathe together, perch to dry out – https://youtu.be/OzEEZ9TzDAc?si=F4eL7DVAM3eSbt2A. My favorite part of this video started around 14:45. DNF (left) and Mr. North (right) are bathing together. They both shake the water out of their feathers, flapping vigorously, before Mr. North dinosaur stomps his way out of the creek. DNF follows and hop-flaps up to the bank, joining Mr. North to dry off in the bright sun. They eventually fly over to a tree to spread their wings and dry off in the wind.
October 26, 2024: Fox squirrel stealing pileated’s snacks – https://youtu.be/4VvKY8QlMBA?si=lg875eluG5Og_uVP. If this is the same squirrel nesting below DNN, it must think it’s found squirrel heaven! It forages through the woodpecker’s cache and eats some acorns. It wasn’t an especially mast heavy year, which makes this cache even more valuable: a big reward for reduced effort and risk!
This video shows us a wonderful slice of life in an eagle woods: eagles drop prey remains for other carnivores and do some tending of the forest canopy; large woodpeckers benefit from eagle stick harvesting, which opens up the canopy and might make the creation of lardering and nesting holes a little easier; small woodpeckers benefit from the holes that large woodpeckers create; and squirrels are more than happy to raid woodpecker larders and nest inside eagle nests. While the eagles themselves can be a threat – squirrels are delicious!- they deter predators and help keep other squirrels away, while being *relatively* easy to avoid unless a squirrel gets careless or unlucky.
October 25, 2025: Eyes in the darkness! Rabbits forage after dark.
Mississippi Flyway
Followers have commented on the unusual migration this year. We can confirm that the timing of hawk migration has been off. While decreasing daylight length triggers migratory restlessness, migration itself is often kicked off by a combination of local factors, including favorable winds and decreased food sources: other birds migrate, mammals and reptiles slow or cease activity, water is sealed with ice. Our unusually warm fall seems to have delayed migration timing when compared to other years, at least when it comes to diurnal birds of prey. We’d also like to get feedback on the potential effects of HPAI on waterfowl numbers and will be reaching out to field researchers and Upper Wildlife and Fish staff for more information.
October 28, 2024: A multi-age group of bald eagles. Look for a lot more of them in November!
October 28, 2024: Eagle Action on the River – https://youtu.be/loDczdzIiVQ?si=gAAnRXXroKKqKntf. Eagles are starting to move through and hungry juveniles and subadults are always drawn to adults. Do they have food? Are they perched in a good place to hunt, fish, or forage? As fall ends, we’ll see a lot more of them come through.
Trempealeau Eagles
October 27, 2024: Mr & Mrs cool evening fly-in. Mrs T lies down in the nest – https://youtu.be/2PgtiS5Bi6A?si=snT1WlKQbKOc6RRa. The Ts nest is taking shape and I swear I can see an eagle heart! Mrs T certainly seems to find it comfortable – she lays down at 3:49 and doesn’t get up until 4:24. Fit test? More like power rest! I look forward to seeing how much building the Ts do here – they’ve already made a great deal of progress since the beginning of October.
The Raptor Resource Project