Scott,


These are truly amazing shots. My hat is off to the photographer, Zach. Thanks for posting them.


Dan Reiff
Mercer Island


----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R a y" <mryakima at gmail.com>
To: "birdyak" <birdyak at egroups.com>, "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>, LCBirds at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 6:33:21 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [Tweeters] [Eaglechat] Goshawk takes Short-eared owls - action photos

Eaglechat, the birding email list for Juneau, Alaska is one of the lists I follow. This interesting item appeared there this afternoon posted by a Juneau resident. Click on the link below to view the amazing photos.


Scott R a y
Yakima, WA
mryakima at gmail dot com




http://zachhanna.smugmug.com/Nature/Owls/10401400_3w6Ws#726767879_eaggo















Every year I look forward to the return of the short-eared owls. They are such graceful and purposeful flyers and are one of my favorite photographic subjects. I run across dead owls on occasion and have always wondered what preys on them. This year I got my answer. I was out at Juneau's Mendenhall wetlands photographing a pair of owls when a dark raptor flew in low-and-fast across the flats. It immediately attacked one of the owls. I thought it was a northern harrier at first, but from its size and the intensity of the battle, I knew it had to be something else. The attacker pursued the owl until they finally engaged in the air and then both birds went to the ground.

I hoped for an OK outcome for the owl, but it wasn't to be. The pursuer flew away with the owl in its talons a short while later. They were a distance away and it was somewhat dark, but I took some photo's anyway hoping to identify the aggressor. It appears to have been an immature northern goshawk.

I put some of the photos up at the start of the owl section on my website at:

Subsequent to this initial encounter, I was out at the wetlands on the Industrial Boulevard side on Thanksgiving Day photographing the owls again. As I was leaving, an owl flew over a patch of tall grass and was attacked from below and brought to the ground by a fast raptor. I walked over to the area and found an immature goshawk busily plucking the feathers from the owl. I took a number of closer shots of this goshawk since it was in no hurry to leave. A couple of these photos are up on the website as well.

Please let me know if you have different ID's for the birds.

Regards,

-Zach






__._,_.___

Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic ( 1 )
Recent Activity:

? New Members 1

Visit Your Group Start a New Topic

MARKETPLACE



Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living



Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living
Yahoo! Groups
Switch to: Text-Only , Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use


.

__,_._,___

_______________________________________________ Tweeters mailing list Tweeters at u.washington.edu http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters