Great photo of the harrier, Jess and Brian.


What I would like to think is this: the owls and harriers are celebrating the near end of hunting season for ducks by all cleaning up the fields of spent shells and other human droppings, to celebrate. Perhaps, they too are concerned about their home environments and may be relieved to no longer see and hear those "big honkin " duck and geese cannons.
If someone captures an image of one dropping a shell into a garbage can that would also be something.


I have wondered if it would be possible to train crows to pick up litter and fly it to dumpsters in parks or near roads and reward them with food. They are certainly capable and if the reward was large enough they would probably be motivated to do so.




Dan Reiff




----- Original Message -----
From: "Jessica Lee" < jessica . ys .lee at gmail .com>
To: tweeters at u. washington . edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 1, 2011 5:28:09 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Strange Harrier Behavior?

On Sunday, my husband and I went up to the Samish Flats to see some SHORT EARED OWLS (we ended up seeing about 7-9 in the late afternoon with very close views).


Driving around the roads in the middle of the day, we stumbled upon this NORTHERN HARRIER which at first seemed to be carrying a mouse. Upon closer inspection with our camera, it was ACTUALLY carrying what looks like a spent shell! The strange part is that the harrier was picking up it, carrying it around, then dropping it. It would repeat this every now and then. Clearly it's not food, so I'm not really sure what it was doing, but we chuckled a bit anyways.


Can anyone enlighten us as to this seemingly strange behavior?


http ://farm5.static. flickr .com/4072/5408747537_7dc5970b70_b. jpg


Jess and Bryan
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