News From The Mews

As my family waited for our pizza at Lakewoods Resort, I looked out over Lake Namakagon and remembered sharing this view with Aldo the American Kestrel. Ten years ago, I snapped a photo after a raptor program here and turned it into my third News From The Mews blog post. Here's a look back at that post: Sometimes even a kestrel needs time to relax after a busy day of work. Aldo had the opportunity to enjoy the view of Lake Namakagon after an outreach program at Lakewoods Resort this week.  As he watched boaters coming and going on the lake, I had a great view of the back of his head. In this photo, you can see the black spots on his nape. These “ocelli” are thought to act as false eyes. They might protect the kestrel from a predator like a Cooper’s or Red-tailed Hawk. The spots might also prevent angry songbirds from getting too close when trying to chase off a kestrel. In either case, they will wait to attack until they have the element of surprise. If the kestrel’s trick works, t...

American Kestrels are cavity nesters. They find holes in trees or utilize nest boxes to keep their eggs safe. Then why does Aldo the American Kestrel make a nest on the ground every year? He creates a depression in the gravel and chatters noisily, bowing up and down, to advertise it to potential mates. Meanwhile, his enclosed hutch remains relatively unused during breeding season.  I once worked with another male ambassador kestrel that tried to nest on the ground. Curious! Both of these kestrels are human imprints - they were raised by people. I wondered recently whether that impacted their nesting preferences. Maybe the people didn't raise these birds in a cavity. Perhaps they were growing up on a flat, open surface, like someone's kitchen counter or a rehab facility's clinic. If they imprinted on their caretakers, did they also imprint on their nest type? That's just my speculation - what do you think?

When Aldo the American Kestrel sits comfortably inside on cold winter days, part of me worries about Carson the Red-tailed Hawk still perched outside. But then I hear my mentor's voice in my head saying reassuringly, "she's fine - they're built to be here year-round." One adaptation that allows Carson to tolerate cold weather is one that she shares with all birds: cold feet. Birds can let their foot temperature drop to near-freezing to conserve their core body temperature. This is achieved through an efficient system called countercurrent heat exchange. Arteries carrying warm, oxygen-rich blood travel down the leg closely intertwine with veins. The proximity of the descending arteries and ascending veins allows heat to transfer across the blood vessels. Cold blood from the toes is passively warmed by the arteries as it heads back up to the body. How efficient! This system maintains the toes above freezing with a continued blood supply to avoid frostbite. Birds als...

Aldo comes inside when the outdoor temperatures dip below 10°F, so he has been in the office a lot recently. When people ask why, they often nod and answer their own question: "oh, because he's so small!" But size can't be the only way to explain this bird's winter hardiness.  Both my daughter and my cat delighted in watching chickadees at our bird feeder last weekend. Weighing in at just a half-ounce, chickadees are 1/7th the size of Aldo the American Kestrel. Yet they survived even through our recent -30°F nights.  My whole family was enthralled with watching the bird feeder at breakfast! Chickadees have fascinating strategies to cope with Wisconsin's winters. They ensure a food supply by hiding seeds in the fall, and enlarging the memory portion of their brain (hippocampus) by 30% to remember where those seed caches are located. Small owls, about the same size as kestrels, also overwinter here. They can locate prey under a blanket of snow with their amazing...

  Aldo the American Kestrel has particularly striking markings. I love the black speckles on his lower belly. But his boldest markings are the malar stripes, the black streaks below his eyes. This is characteristic of falcons (and cheetahs) to reduce glare when chasing prey on sunny days. 

Looking for inspiration to spruce up our snakes' enclosures, I went to iNaturalist.org to search for photos of hognose snakes in their native habitat. The observations submitted by naturalists across the country contained photos ranging from quick phone snapshots to professional-quality images. I was particularly charmed by this lovely photo from Kansas. I noted the gravelly ground and short grasses in this snake's home and wondered how we might mimic some of those habitat features for our snake, Digger. Updates for Digger will take some planning, but in the meantime, I may just need to make this photo my desktop background. Western Hognose Snake in Kansas, 2025. 📷: Dylan Mermis,  iNaturalist

Do reptiles have long-term moods? A research paper published this year would say yes! They found that tortoises who approached a bowl more quickly, hoping for a tasty treat, were also more comfortable in a novel environment. The researchers concluded that these tortoises were optimistic.  A Red-Footed Tortoise, the same species used in the study. Ethologist Karolina Westlund compares this type of animal to Gene Kelly when he sings:  "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again I'm laughing at clouds..."* When we're in a good mood, we can laugh at clouds! Westlund says we perceive potentially negative experiences as laughable, friendly, or safe. The optimistic tortoises didn't know if they would get a treat at the bowl or not, but they approached it quickly as if they thought there was a good chance of getting a reward. And they showed fewer stress behaviors in a new place, perhaps assuming that the new enviro...

As I walked past the pollinator garden with Carson, the hawk's neck stretched back and forth almost comically. Carson was stabilizing her vision as we moved just like a chicken or pigeon strutting. By holding the head steady while the body moves, birds can keep a clear view of their moving environment. As the body continues to move forward, the head quickly snaps forward to catch up. It appeared Carson was just as interested in observing the garden - or the rabbit rustling in the foliage - as I was!

Cleaning the raptor mews may be a dirty job, but it can lead to some interesting discoveries. Under a pile of shredded newspaper, I found this feather from Carson the Red-tailed Hawk. The central shaft forms a slight S-curve, telling me this came from Carson's alula, a bird's "thumb."  I noticed faint lines along the feather vane like frets on a guitar's fingerboard. Known as stress bars, these lines are weak spots in the feather. They form if the bird undergoes heightened stress as the feather grows. It might be physical stress like starvation or psychological stress like escaping a predator. For Carson, I believe these stress bars are caused by her permanent wing injury affecting feather growth.

Normally a rather debonaire fellow, Aldo the American Kestrel was a soggy mess after an enthusiastic bath on a hot and muggy day. I chuckled at his disheveled look. His feathers were soaked and matted together, revealing an interesting piece of anatomy. Just behind his eye was a hole - his ear!  Mammals have prominent external pinnae that stick out from the head to funnel sound into the inner ears. Bird ears are less conspicuous. The simple hole is usually covered by protective feathers, so this was a rare glimpse at Aldo's auditory system!

I love the sounds of early summer. Each bird song I hear on a walk around my neighborhood transports me back in my memories. My mind wanders to the people and places where I first learned each song.    White-throated Sparrow - the first bird song I learned to identify.   When I hear "Poor Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody," it brings me back to my college field station where our professor played a recording of the White-Throated Sparrow's song. To our delight, a sparrow outside the classroom window started singing back! We were excited to point out the song every time we heard it that afternoon. By the evening, we realized that they sing non-stop and it became wearisome. " There's the White-throated Sparrow...again...and again.. ." A repetitive, up-and-down whistle calls down from a tree and makes me imagine looking down The Stairs of Health and Happiness, so-named to keep kids (and adults) excited about the trek up 245 steps to reach the top of Wolf Ridge Environ...

I cover the mew floors with paper every winter to make cleaning up easier without running water. And there comes a point every spring when Carson the Red-tailed Hawk decides that the newspaper is actually nesting material. She drags sheets to the corner, along with a few sticks I provide, and spends time perfecting her nest.  This week, I caught her making careful adjustments to her nest. Then squatting down with a stompy shimmy, which I assume is intended to shape the inner bowl of the nest: Even though Carson doesn't have the same resources available as wild Red-tails, she still displays these innate nest building behaviors. Nearly the same behavior can be spotted on this live Red-tail nest cam if you skip to 6 minutes and 25 seconds into the clip: 

I was delighted to find this well-timed photograph of a Red-tailed Hawk "slice" from photographer Ron Dudley:  See more from photographer Ron Dudley on his website: Feathered Photography Caught in mid-mute, the photo clearly shows how forcefully a hawk can clear out their last meal. The falconry term for this is a "slice," defined by The Modern Apprentice as " the throwing of a mute as what Accipiters, hawks, and eagles do forcibly ejecting the material. Falcons mute straight down while the other raptors fling their fecal matter out with a bit of velocity. " I see the effects of this every week while cleaning our raptor mews. Aldo, our American Kestrel, drops his mutes below his perches so it is relatively easy to clean up. Carson the Red-tailed Hawk slices her mutes "with a bit of velocity" so the whole floor, and even the walls, are splattered with poo.

The fall newsletter from the American Kestrel Partnership shared some fascinating stories from kestrel nest box monitors in 2023. From broken eggs to buffleheads and cliff-side nests to long-distance migrations, kestrels in North America had an interesting year! You can read the kestrel breeding season stories in the AKP newsletter, under the section title, "Tails From a Wild 2023 Season"  here . Here's one anecdote that they shared from a nest box monitor in Oregon: "Diane Kook discovered the attachment hardware on one of her boxes had failed. Without a replacement on hand, she managed to temporarily mount the box at a much lower height than the standard 8–20 ft (2.5–6 m) we recommend, planning to properly reinstall it during her next visit. But the local kestrels had other ideas: by the time she returned, the box was occupied! Four kestrels eventually fledged from the limbo-level box, whose floor was a mere 2.5 ft (0.75 m) off the ground."

My Halloween started with a midwest blizzard and ended with a desert mountain sunset. I had arrived in Phoenix for the Pet Professional Guild conference and had strategically planned my flight a day early so I would have time for some sightseeing. It was my first time in the southwest and I could hardly wait to explore the desert.  Saguaro National Park Everything was strange to me as I wandered the trails at Saguaro National Park. The wind whistled through the spines of massive saguaro cacti. Leafless ocotillo stalks sported intimidating thorns. The palo verde's green branches seemed to glow against the brilliantly blue sky. Prickly pear cacti emerged out of the gravelly ground. It felt like another planet.  Then I spotted a familiar face. A kestrel sat on a power line, bobbing his tail. Just like Aldo! In a place that felt so foreign, it was nice to see someone that reminded me that I wasn't so far from home after all.  American Kestrel perched on a cactus (stock photo)...

On Sunday, I found Emory in this odd position with part of her body draped over her rock hide. I had a theory as to why. The clues were as follows: The rat snake ate a tasty mouse the day before. A snake's stomach is about one-third of the way down their body. This rock was the warmest place in her habitat, directly under the heat lamp.  If her full stomach was placed in the warmest spot, she must have been working on digestion! There's even a technical term for this behavior: post-prandial thermophilic response .  For the word nerds out there... Post = after Prandial = relating to a meal Thermo = heat Philic = loving Post-prandial thermophilic response = after-meal heat-loving! Basically, snakes seek out a warm spot after eating to help with digestion. Reptiles can't produce their own body heat so they rely on the environment to get the perfect temperature. The warmer they are, the faster their meal is processed. Higher temperatures may also mean more efficient uptake of n...

 

"Would you be willing to donate an egg or two to science?" I asked Hayley, the Museum's Assistant Director. Hayley has a flock of backyard chickens at home and I was wondering if their eggs are stronger than store-bought eggs. Luckily she was willing to sacrifice a few for the raptor program demonstration. After meeting Aldo the American Kestrel during each live raptor program, we take a look at the problems associated with DDT that their cousin the Peregrine Falcon faced in the mid-1900's. DDT was fantastic at killing pesky insects, but it also thinned the falcon's egg shells so much that the eggs broke during incubation.  "I made an omelet for breakfast this morning," I tell the audience. "And those eggs were pretty easy to crack. If eggs are already pretty fragile, maybe we didn't have too much of an impact on the birds." So I set up the Egg Smasher for a science experiment: how much weight can a healthy egg hold? We slowly add weight to...

Carson loves taking baths in the summertime. Sometimes she just likes to quietly soak her feet, while other days she really gets into it. Wednesday was a splashy day and I noticed the feathers on her face were soaked and matted. When I looked closer, I could even see her ear. The hole behind her eye is usually covered by fluffy feathers, so this was a rare sighting!