BIRDS OF PREY

A good friend phoned a few days ago with news they have added a new puppy to their family. He and is wife affectionately named the rust colored miniature dachshund “Lucy.”

“She’s just a little thing — maybe two pounds,” he said. My friend was clearly excited about the addition until I offered a firm warning and some stern words of advice gleaned from more than three decades of living in the country. We’ve lost one Jack Russell to coyotes and had another that survived an attack.

The idea behind the advice was to make my friend aware of how unforgiving Mother Nature can be at times.

“You better watch that pup and stay close to it when it you let it outside to go pee,” I said. “A bobcat or coyote could snatch her up and be gone before you know it. Watch out for owls and hawks, too.”

Silence followed before regard. Interestingly, my friend called back the following day with some interesting intel. He had taken the puppy outside the evening before when he noticed a barred owl perched on a nearby tree limb. The owl stared at the puppy a few seconds before taking off and melting mysteriously into the underbrush.

“Man, it was only 10-15 feet away and it took off,” he said. “I’ve heard them calling around here several times since.”

Fierce as they may look, the odds of a barred owl waging an attack on a dog the size of Lucy are pretty slim. That’s the word from Matt Reidy of Devine.

Reidy is a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife biologist and a master falconer who relies on a pair of Peregrine falcons for hunting ducks during a special late winter season. This year the falconry season for ducks runs Jan. 26 - Feb. 9 in 174 counties.

The wildlife biologist knows a thing two about raptors and their feeding habits.

Reidy says he reads social media posts pretty frequently from folks who are concerned about owls and other raptors attacking their pets, but it’s typically not a concern.

“Certain raptor species will hunt large prey,” Reidy said. “A red-tailed hawk or Great Horned owl will catch a cottontail rabbit, which weighs about two pounds. If they catch prey like that, they might drag it to a corner, but they are not capable of flying away with it.”

Reidy said a red-tailed hawk or Great Horned owl could potentially try for a puppy as small as two pounds, but larger prey is typically off limits.

“That’s usually not the kind of prey that hawks and owls will normally go after,” Reidy said. “They go after mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits, lizards or insects.”

Reidy said quail also rank high on their hit list. The super agile Cooper’s hawk is a well-known enemy in Texas quail country.

“Any raptor will catch a quail given the opportunity,” he said. “Every predator will eat a quail.”

Barred owls, Great Horned owls, eagles, falcons, redtailed hawks, red shouldered hawks, vultures and osprey are among the most common birds of prey found in Texas.

I’ve had some pretty cool experiences with several different raptors.

Bald Eagles

Several years ago, Ebb Flynt and I were on Toledo Bend running stump hooks near Huxley when we spotted a lone mallard hen high-tailing it north. Seemingly from nowhere, a bald eagle blindsided the duck and attacked with its sharp talons.

The duck died instantly and fell from the sky, almost like it had been popped with a shotgun. We picked up the bird off the main boat lane and discovered several puncture wounds about its neck and chest.

On numerous occasions, I’ve seen bald eagles haze flocks of coots on public lakes. The blackish water birds usually gather in tight groups when there is an eagle nearby, flying occasionally when the predator swoops in too close.

“The eagle is looking for a sick or weak one when they do that,” Reidy said.

Bald eagles are common on several lakes across Texas. The birds’ fondness for the water stems largely from bounty of food finning around out there. Eagles feed heavily on fish, but will also take down other types of prey like ducks, rabbits and other small animals.

Transmitter in a Tree

Texas Parks Wildlife Department inland fisheries crews had a unique experience involving a bald eagle in November 2019 on Toledo Bend.

Biologists had surgically installed small radio transmitters in several dozen bass in the Housen Bay area as part of multi-year radio telemetry study aimed largely at learning more about the seasonal movements of largemouths. A similar study was carried out at Lake Fork.

Not long into the study, all of the fish at both lakes died due to bacterial infections around the incisions. Biologists believe the infections were linked to weakened immune systems caused by a drastic decline in water temperatures soon after the surgeries were performed.

TPWD was able to recover many of the $175 transmitters using radio telemetry gear. Some were recovered on land, where the fish were apparently carried off and eaten by scavengers. At Toledo Bend, one of the transmitters was pinging a signal from a bald eagle nest high in a lakeside pine tree.

American Osprey

The fish-eating American osprey is another bird of prey frequently seen around water.

A friend and I once got up close and personal with a female osprey while fishing in Tenaha Creek, also on Toledo Bend.

We came across a large nest built from sticks and twigs over the water in the top of an old tree. We weren’t sure if there were chicks or eggs in the nest, but it was obvious the mother didn’t like us being around.

The big bird circled the nest repeatedly. I snapped a few photos and we left to avoid further disturbing the area.

Country life has also brought me close to barred owls, red shouldered hawks and other predators numerous times.

Barred Owl

One of the barred owls was especially cool. I approached the bird one afternoon as it perched on a tree limb overlooking the spring-fed creek that dissects our property.

The owl allowed me to move amazingly close. Occasionally, the bird looked down and eyeballed the ground beneath it.

I went to the spot the following morning. There, I found a small colony of crayfish chimneys built from mud. The area around the mounds was littered with pinchers and other weathered remnants of exoskeleton — a good sign the owl had been enjoying a tasty buffet on the moist forest floor for quite some time.

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo. com.