Things that squawk in the middle of day

Here's the way it all began: "Jim, what sounds like a bald eagle without the staccato chattering? Four consecutive "blasts" (to put it in nautical terms) in the same tonal range as a BE... Craig."

That's the email message I received from Craig Eisenbeis, Nugget writer and fellow bass in the Sister Chorale.

Then he added this: "Another thing... it just won't shut up.... constant squawking... like a baby that wants to be fed (ah-hah! A clue). When I first saw it, my first thought was osprey, but it was way too small... also it's wings do not appear disproportionately long like an osprey..." (Ah-hah, another clue.)

For me, it was a great way to start the day; it reminded me of the incessant squawking of juvenile great horned owls - and Ocohco Campground.

Back in the mid-'60s I was a jack-of-all-trades at OMSI's Camp Hancock, over near Fossil. One of my functions was camp naturalist and to baby-sit a bunch of high school kids who attended Hancock and then went over to the Ochocos to dig fossils and camp overnight in the Ochoco Campground.

In July and August, juvenile great horned owls screech (beg for food) all night long all around the campground. Each year we camped there, at least one camper would shudder, and, with bulging eyes, ask, "What on earth is all that horrible screeching?" I told them it was a giant cougar and they'd better stay in their tents all night. I always slept well in the Ochoco Campground, serenaded by those poor, starving owls.

Later, Craig sent me this one: "Well, I finally saw it this morning and it's a large hawk; (ah-hah! Another clue) but I only saw it from underneath with the sun behind it. It's mostly mottled white - which means nothing in hawkdom... but the call is what's peculiar: usually four long squawks that are a high-pitched whistle and sound to be in about the same range as a bald eagle."

"Ah-hah," I thought, "we're getting closer." I responded with: "By the end of summer we'll have this narrowed down, but for now I'll settle on a juvenile red-tailed hawk. They come all shades of reddish-gray and brown; it/they would be the hawk you would normally see around Indian Ford Meadow, and the juveniles squawk a great deal..."

To which Crag emailed back: "This is awfully big to be a young red-tail. I've seen adults around here much smaller than this thing. Plus it's nothing like the usual red-tail call."

"Neither is the screech and squawk of a juvenile great horned owl," I said to myself.

So, last Wednesday I went to Craig's place at 8 a.m. and stood around listening and watching. About 8:30 a.m. Craig joined me, and after a few minutes he suddenly pointed and said, "That's it! Do you hear it?"

Unfortunately, he was talking to a person who lost the ability to hear high-range sounds, but thanks to Central Oregon Audiology and the wonderful people who run it, I have hearing instruments that have provided the ability to (almost) hear those high frequency sounds. I couldn't hear it all, but I could hear the length and part of the call. And for all the years I've had watching and hearing raptors, that did sound (to me) like the begging call of a juvenile red-tailed hawk.

Gary Landers, of Wild Wings Raptor Rehabilitation Center, lives not far from Craig, and the last time I was at Gary's place, he had at least five young red-tails flying all over the rehab facility (ah-hah! A BIG clue).

They're hawks he received as nestlings, now flying and slowly working their way into the wild. Gary feeds them whole mice, which gives the hawks a clue as to what they're supposed to capture and eat, a "hacking out" procedure that works very well.

However, if anyone living in the Indian Ford Meadow community happens to see what is really making that sound Craig hears, and happens to get a photograph, I'd love to see it.