Nesting Owls

One afternoon while the wind was blowing hard, I was picking up sticks in the yard. I noticed a feather moving up in the crotch of a big poplar tree. I looked closer. And lo and behold, I saw a Great Horned Owl sitting there.

Now, we frequently have owls in our yard, but they usually fly away when we get within 20 meters. This one stayed. A hint of a suspicion starting forming in my mind. The next day I went back out, and she was still there. Now I was convinced. This was a mama Great Horned Owl, and she was sitting on her eggs.


I looked up information about nesting Great Horned Owls and found some really interesting information from a Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird cam site. The owl lays 1-4 eggs, each one a few days apart. Then she sits on (incubates) them for 30-37 days. During this time, she stays on the nest for pretty much the whole time, as she has a special featherless brood patch that keeps the eggs warm. Her mate catches food and brings it to her.


I was expecting to be watching the well-camoflauged mama for a few weeks. But just one week later, I saw some extra movement in the nest. An owlet had hatched!

It was small, but the beak was easy to distinguish. And by the way, I'm taking all these photos with a zoom lens at 400mm, a crop sensor camera, and then cropping the photos in post-processing. So even though it looks like I'm right there, I'm standing way back.

Just the next night, the owlet looked so much bigger. The owls are born covered in white down. About a week later, they start getting some colored feathers. At three weeks they will start developing ear tufts. And at 6-7 weeks, they will leave the nest.

Mama owl has her back to the owlet; she seems to change position a lot. And while I was watching there was a little bit of activity on the side. Another owlet! I couldn't get a good photo due to low light levels, but I'll share a photo soon.

It's so much fun to have all this activity right in the backyard. We've had owls nest nearby, but never right in the yard (to our knowledge). Stay tuned for more owl photos!

Yellow-bellied Marmots Are Out

 The kids and I went up Baker Creek Road in Great Basin National Park one day after school to see if the yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) were out. And lucky for us, they were easy to spot.

We traded in the van for an SUV that has a moonroof, and the kids had fun checking the marmots out through it.

Oh my, these are cute animals! Marmots are burrowing rodents. They also spend a lot of time out sunning themselves.

They weigh between 3.5 and 11 pounds, generally the lightest in early spring and the heaviest in late summer or early fall. Males weigh more than females.

Is this one doing yoga?

The marmots will live in colonies of up to 20 animals, with a dominant male. They eat a variety of plants, and occasionally insects and bird eggs. Coyotes are their major predator. Marmots seem to really like to dig into the road base, so they are frequently found on the Baker Creek road. They don't like to move, which makes it easier to take photos of them.

But that also means they get run over. So the park installed these Marmot Crossing signs. Can you find the marmot in the photo?

Marmots can live up to 15 years. They are one of the longest hibernating animals around. At this location, they typically come out of hibernation in March and go back in July, although the young will reawaken in September to eat more.

You can learn more about marmots here. Although they're supposed to whistle in alarm, I've never heard the ones along Baker Creek road do that.

Return to the Fire

 A couple weeks ago, the kids and I headed after school to Strawberry Creek, a place that had a big fire a couple of years ago. I was curious how things were recovering. The road is now open to the campground area in the pinyon-juniper area, although all the camping amenities have been removed because it's not that great an area to camp in right now, with everything black and no shade.

We stopped outside the park boundary and the kids headed towards the creek while I went up the ridge. I heard so many birds as I was walking. Finally I got a photo of one--a mountain bluebird.

Up on the ridge I found this metal lying against the tree. I'm not sure what it was.

I think this is a female Cassin's finch.

I really enjoy walking in burned areas. The meadow down near the creek made a stark contrast with the grey hillside behind it.


After awhile I headed back down to the creek. I found a lot more vegetation on the less steep slopes, like this American vetch (Vicia americana).

The Basin Wildrye was recovering nicely. That's the tallest native grass around, and I'll be writing a lot more about it this summer as I have a project to restore it.

I found the kids happily playing in the trees, Desert Girl with a hatchet and Desert Boy trying to fit something together. They seem to be happy to be outside, as long as they don't have to hike too far.

The Oregon grape made a bright contrast with all the black.

 But my happiest moment was seeing this little sagebrush. Not so long ago, all this area was dominated by sagebrush. It's so great to see it coming back.

They did lots of aerial seeding in this burned area, so hopefully we'll continue to see lots more vegetation and regeneration of the land.

2017 Caves

In a beautiful local cave with friend Teresa and kids

2017 was a terrific year for caving. I went in caves at almost sea level down in Quintana Roo, Mexico, and in a fumarole cave at the top of Mount Rainier, over 14,000 feet high. Plus many in between!

I taught cave rescue classes in Texas, Arizona, and Oregon. The kids and I went to the National Speleological Society (NSS) Western Regional at Lava Beds in California. I was part of the CavesLIVE project filmed in Arkansas. Plus there was lots of great regional caving, including some super paleontological finds and assistance with archeological projects. Cave clean ups included two lint camps and a trip to a well known Utah cave.

Here are a variety of photos. In order to protect some of the caves, I don't necessarily give their name (plus some I've forgotten!).

Surveying a cave in Quintana Roo by float tube (Photo credit: Frank Bogle)


Hiking through the caves is sometimes easier than hiking through the jungle; with Carol and Peter in Quintana Roo


Sunlight filtering through an entrance into a fumarole cave in the summit crater of Mt. Rainier


The Buddha: a landmark in a local cave. It's survived many inundations.

Lint camp is surprisingly fun and brings out lots of smiles

I still don't know how this helictite column formed.

Another cave pretty: a gypsum flower

A trip through the humongous Talus Room at lint camp

A hydrologic oddity--water spouting off to the side. Only happens during fast snow melt.

The beautiful Model Cave harvestman (Sclerobunus ungulatus)

Checking out a cool earth crack cave in Arizona

Stations at a Flagstaff-area cave during a Small Party Assisted Rescue class

On rope next to my brother Ed

It's over a giant snow drift to get into this ice-coated cave

A minuscule millipede, only known from one isolated cave

At the bottom of Nevada's deepest cave, admiring the ice

One of the ephemeral oddities at the bottom of the deepest cave in Nevada

With friends in Blanchard Springs Caverns for the filming of CavesLIVE  (airing in mid-February)

Amazing cave folia

A rare posed photo with friends

Desert Girl in a lava tube at Lava Beds National Monument

Desert Boy in Valentine Cave at Lava Beds National Monument 

A cave millipede

Unusual bones found in a cave

Admiring cool carrot-like stalactites

My good caving pal Doug, who I will go into any cave with

Who will solve the mystery of the ripples on the broken inside of a cave shield?

Cool speleothems

Louise explaining coral pipes

It's always a treat to walk in a Nevada cave!

Classic boneyard ceiling (eroded partially by condensation corrosion)

The lone stalagmite

Checking out more bones in a cave

In a cave with a lot of graffiti for a little cleanup

Bonny smoothing out some of the graffiti in punk rock

A cool cave beetle

We're looking forward to another year with more fun caving. You never know what might be underground!