December 24, 2005
Too late, the phalarope
We've had a pretty good storm series over the last couple days, south wind at 30kts, lots of rain. It's been blowing in lots of RED PHALAROPES. I counted 82 this morning at the south Jetty of the Columbia River; by this afternoon Steve Warner counted a couple hundred.
Many of these birds come ashore storm-stressed and weak. The visiting SNOWY OWLS appear to be taking advantage of the bounty. Examination of today's owl pellet haul produced a single pellet with beak parts from no fewer than 3 phalaropes.
Two other pellets contain bird feathers and bones, but probably from something larger, like a duck or gull. The remaining four pellets had Black Rat bones.
Posted by mbalame at December 24, 2005 1:42 AMAn obvious reason that the snowy owls are not eating California Ground Squirrels is that ground squirrels hibernate during the winter.
Posted by: Eric Forsman at December 30, 2005 11:43 PMMy reading of the California Ground Squirrel account in Land Mammals of Oregon (Verts and Carraway 1998) suggests that the specifics of hibernaculum in this species are under-studied along the coastal strip. Any statement about the presence or absence of ground squirrels in coastal Oregon during the putative hibernaculum elsewhere in the species range probably deserves one or two caveats about what is actually known....
Posted by: Mike at December 31, 2005 12:43 AM