Montana Bird Lady

12/07/2025

Pretty cool art! Thanks for sharing, Craig Conklin!

12/07/2025

12/06/2025

This is a great post!

Thank you to Steve Sachs Photography for posting this photo of a "gorged" Peregrine Falcon. When we get a call about a grounded bird of prey with no obvious injuries, we often ask the finder if the bird looks like it swallowed a tennis ball. This falcon is a picture-perfect example of this. Most birds have a crop, a blind pouch, in the esophagus before the stomachs (proventriculus and ventriculus/gizzard). It's the birdy version of a doggy bag. Very limited digestion occurs in the crop; it is primarily for temporary food storage. It can take up to about 3 hours for a full crop to empty into the stomachs for digestion. When food is available a bird will take advantage eating as much of as fast as it can before something comes to compete for the food OR to prey on them. A bird with a super full crop is likely to be in a bit of a food coma for a while, perched or even on the ground. Some birds of prey can cram up to 1/3 of their body weight into their crop so you can imagine that change in body weight might keep a bird grounded while it digests.

12/06/2025

This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of….

12/05/2025

Jack the Prairie Falcon, chilling out in his new “house!” Super volunteers helped to get the modified falcon house ready for the winter, and Jack moved in just prior to our first big snowstorm in NW Montana! Many thanks to Sue Haugan for snapping the pic today, when she went to visit and tidy up his side of the house! Montana Bird Lady volunteers have been stepping up and helping take care of Jack while I’ve been away on medical leave this Fall. Photo cred: Sue Haugan.

12/04/2025

Dogfight in the sky
Peregrine falcon diving on an immature red tailed hawk
October 2025

12/04/2025

Let’s all take a page out of Theo’s book this morning and have a nap 😴

Some birds sleep by tucking their heads into their feathers while perching, just as Theo is demonstrating. They often sleep standing up (sometimes even on one foot!), but how is this possible? When perched, the muscles in a birds legs force the tendons in their feet to tighten, keeping the foot closed around a perch and preventing them from falling off while asleep!

12/04/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17orSTyLA1/?mibextid=wwXIfr

PRESS RELEASE
What Happens to Eagles After Rehab?
Murphy et al.

There are many ways for an eagle to suffer a human-caused death. Electrocution, lead poisoning, vehicle collisions, or being shot, to name a few. Some of these deaths are “offset” through a provision within the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1962 (BGEPA) that requires eagles to be replaced when they are removed from the population by certain human actions. A recent study published in the Journal of Raptor Research, titled “Post-release Survival of Golden Eagles in Western North America Following Clinical Rehabilitation from Injury and Disease,” found that releasing rehabilitated Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) back into the wild could be an effective means of compensating for eagle deaths that occur as a result of otherwise legal actions, such as those associated with energy infrastructure. These results are part of a continuous effort to try and stabilize Golden Eagle populations throughout their range and understand the efficacy of rehabilitation efforts for the species in general.

A key provision within the BGEPA refers to what is called “incidental take.” This acknowledges that injury, death, or disturbance of eagles may result from technically legal human activities. Such “take” is accepted as a matter of practicality, up to a point. For example, electrical companies must develop and implement formal protection plans to limit take to the greatest extent possible in order to avoid persecution if eagles suffer electrocutions from their equipment. With such a plan, a utility company can obtain a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows limited incidental take. However, these takes must be offset, which is where rehabilitation could come in.

Lead author on the paper, Robert Murphy, in collaboration with many dedicated wildlife rehabilitators and biologists from several western wildlife agencies and conservation organizations, aimed to determine whether releasing rehabilitated Golden Eagles can indeed offset wild eagle deaths. The team fitted 27 rehabilitated Golden Eagles with satellite transmitters just before releasing the eagles near where they had been found in several western states.

Fifteen of the 27 eagles died within the first year of release. Fates of three were unknown. The cause of death was confirmed for most of these eagles, and included electrocution, vehicle collision, wind turbine collision, shooting, lead poisoning, rodenticide poisoning, and starvation. None of the 10 breeding-age eagles that survived multiple years exhibited signs of inhabiting nesting territories while being monitored by the research team, except for one, although only for part of a season. Two other eagles struck out on bizarre journeys, moving up to 5,300 miles in atypical directions during a time of year that most North American Golden Eagles stay put. Both eagles died. Head trauma was the suspected reason for these movements, as both birds were brought to rehabilitation centers after being hit by cars. Although starvation was the most frequent mortality factor for the released eagles, it is not a common cause of death among wild Golden Eagles.

Based on analysis of their data to estimate eagle survival, the team reported that 3.5 rehabilitated individuals would need to be released to amount to one wild individual, to match parameters for ideal population health. Rehabilitated eagles may have a lower chance of survival for many reasons. Following release, the eagles could still be physically compromised to a degree that is not apparent to rehabilitators or veterinarians. In addition to reduced likelihood of survival, this might hamper their ability to locate and capture prey, find and breed with mates, defend nesting territories, migrate, or otherwise succeed as fit participants of the population.

The results of this study provide needed insight into the fate of rehabilitated Golden Eagles. In Murphy’s opinion this research is important because “substantial effort and money is invested in rehabilitation, and these centers want to know the fate of the raptors they’ve worked hard to save.” He urges more research on the breeding success of rehabilitated eagles, to better understand how these individuals participate in population growth. Golden Eagle populations are likely to decline in western North America as causes of death become more prevalent in tandem with human development. Golden Eagles are top predators, and their continued presence on the landscape impacts holistic ecosystem health. Finding a way to replace the eagles that die from anthropogenic causes is about more than making up for what we’ve done — it’s about developing wildlife-friendly infrastructure, continuing to invest in education and policy to reduce eagle shootings, restricting poison usage, and prioritizing research that investigates the long-term outcomes of these efforts.

Paper available at https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-raptor-research/volume-59/issue-4/jrr2469/Post-Release-Survival-of-Golden-Eagles-in-Western-North-America/10.3356/jrr2469.full

Photo: Adult Golden Eagle carrying a satellite transmitter, just released after being rehabilitated at the Teton Raptor Center. Nancy Alley.

12/03/2025

11/30/2025

We need to do better and eliminate lead for hunting and fishing! There are many alternatives!

11/30/2025

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1833118177409179&set=a.1196106041110399&type=3

I still circle above your fields, but the silence rising from below tells you something is breaking.

Since nineteen seventy, North America has lost more than three billion birds, nearly one third of its entire population. Insects, the foundation of that food web, have fallen by roughly seventy five percent. Songbirds now struggle to raise young because there is less to eat. And raptors like me, who depend on them, are disappearing in the same quiet decline.

A red tailed hawk is an apex predator and a biological indicator. I help control rodent populations and save farmers billions in crop damage each year. But every part of my survival rests on the links beneath me. A single chickadee needs nearly nine thousand caterpillars to raise one brood. When insects die, the birds starve. When the birds starve, I follow.

The collapse is subtle. Pesticides meant to tidy lawns kill the soil life that supports everything else. Monoculture grass becomes a silent desert. Native meadows become rare. The food chain weakens from the bottom long before predators feel the fall.

Fun Fact: More than ninety percent of North American songbirds feed their young almost exclusively on insects, making healthy insect populations essential for their survival.

If you want the skies to stay full, you start with the ground beneath your feet. Restore habitat. Grow native plants. Protect the soil. When insects return, songbirds return. When songbirds return, the raptors come back too.



Sources
Science (2019) – Rosenberg et al. study documenting the loss of 3 billion North American birds
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017) – Hallmann et al. research showing a 75% decline in flying insects
USGS & National Audubon Society – Data on raptor population trends and ecosystem dependence on insect-feeding songbirds

11/24/2025

H5N5 kills Washington resident, likely contracted from a backyard flock. It’s still out there and will continue to be. Call a licensed rehabber that uses proper hazmat protocols to handle sick and dead birds.

Curated by Smartbrief. A Washington resident has died from complications related to H5N5 avian influenza, the first human case of this strain and the second US avian flu death in 2025. The patient, an older adult with underlying health conditions, likely contracted the virus from his backyard...