That's Why They Call it Fox Chase Farm

Like all of America, I'm doing my best to stop the spread of Corona Virus by staying home and keeping up with the social distancing requirements. I generally work from home anyway, so that part is easy for me. Connie and I are set up in different parts of the house to work (somehow, she got the sunroom). We still get outside every day to walk Peanut. We are going to Pennypack and Lorimer parks which is really nice. Lorimer Park butts up against Fox Chase Farm which has big open cow pastures and a beautiful view.

The other day, I noticed a fox one of the cow pastures at Fox Chase Farm. And, as the name suggests, I watched her as she stalked and chased her prey. She would sit very still with laser focus on the grass in front of her.

Listening for critters

Then, she would leap into the air and come down hard hoping to pin the prey.

The Pounce!

She did this several times. Stare. Pounce. Stare. Pounce.

And finally, one last pounce lunging directly away from my camera lens . . .

Victory! A rodent of some sort to bring back to her kits. She looked directly at me as if to say "Got it!"

Success

She trotted off through the field. What a way to spend 15 minutes before going back to the reality of our pandemic situation.

Birds of St. Paul

Now that you are introduced to St. Paul Island, I can tell you about the birds. Our guides keep tabs on birds every day so they know about all of the "common" birds and know how to track down vagrants. We were taken to see the common birds on the island including shorebirds that I was really interested in seeing. First up - Rock Sandpiper. This bird is like our Purple Sandpiper. Very common along the Alaskan coast.

Next up - Gray-tailed Tattler. This bird looks almost exactly like Wandering Tattler so we needed to hear it call to confirm the ID. We also had the luxury of studying both birds on the same log. The Gray-tailed is on the left. Wandering on the right.

Of all the shorebirds, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper was one that I really wanted to see. We saw 6 of them a few days in a row but finally got close enough for a photo on the last day. You can see the sharp tail in this pose.

The island has hosted a White-tailed Sea Eagle for a few months. This juvenile eagle should be in Russia or Europe. In fact, I saw one in Poland a few years ago. The bird is larger than our Bald Eagle and likes to hang around the cliffs along the coast. We looked for the bird everyday. It shouldn't be difficult since it was the only eagle around. We finally saw the bird soaring over fields and headed to the coast. Four other birders were on the island specifically to see this bird and this bird only. They were all in the other van and didn't see the bird. We really wanted the others to see the bird so we decided to hike up the cliffs to see if the eagle was on the cliff face. The eagle lifted off from the cliff. It was huge. The ID on the bird is the white back which can be seen in this photo. Everyone got a great look.

White-tailed Sea Eagle

Lots of high-fives and celebration beer ensued after we saw this bird.

Sea Eagle Gang

 Other common birds on the island include Gray-crowned Rosy-finch. These birds like rock piles and are like our House Sparrows. They were all molting so really hideous to look at.

I'm Hideous!

Birds in the fields were mostly Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings.

Lapland Longspur

Snow Bunting

There are not many mammals on the island. The most common (other than the Fur Seals) were Arctic Foxes. We saw them literally everywhere we went.

They were in the grass.

Arctic Fox

 On the jetty in the harbor.

Arctic Fox

In the parking lot along the salt flats.

Arctic Fox

More along the rocks. They are very comfortable around people as you can see here.

Arctic Fox

And even on the beach. These foxes do not turn white like their cousins on the mainland. They keep their dark coats all year since the island doesn't get snow that stays all winter.

Arctic Fox

We found a lot of signs of past lives on our hikes. Here is a Fur Seal skull.

Skull

I found this whale vertebra close to the coast. Yes, it was heavy.

Whale Vertebra

We found this grave site at the high point on Northeast Point. It has been here since 1895 alone on the hill.

Lonesome Grave

We found other markers on the island too. These Orthodox crosses were posted in odd places.

Cross

I found that if I looked at them from a particular angle, they actually formed a line that pointed to a chapel (seen in the distance in the photo) or the to the main Russian Orthodox church in town. Funny that most of the native Alaskans identify as Orthodox Catholics due to the Russian influence. The native Alaskans also use markers from their own culture to mark significant sites. Here is a photo of me and Marty inside the jawbones of a Bowhead whale. The bones probably mark a good fishing or hunting site. We found good birds and came back to the site a few times.

Linda and Marty

Circle of Life in the Snow Storm

Warning: this blog post shows animals acting like, well, animals. Since I have been working at home I have seen our neighborhood foxes often. Mostly in winter and spring and almost always when it snows. Today was no exception. We experienced another "snowicane" along the east coast today with snow and blowing wind. About 9:30, the fox wandered past the pond and around the back of the house. Connie was home today so I yelled for her to look out the kitchen window to see the fox. Poor Connie. She witnessed the fox grabbing a squirrel right by the neck.

The fox took the squirrel out back and had lunch. Watch if you want to. Don't watch if it upsets you. I thought it was interesting that the fox uses the snow as a napkin.

I don't usually post things like this but I have to tell you that after this, no squirrels were eating the birdseed. Only birds. It is soooo cold here that the birds really need to seed. (And the fox really needs the squirrel) Don't worry, the next post has pretty birds and fun stuff. Promise.

Other Colorado Wildlife

Of course, we saw more birds than Grouse and Ptarmigan. In fact, I added 11 life birds on the trip. Todd got 4 which is good for him. We found iconic western species including 100+ Western Meadowlarks singing their R2D2 songs.

Western Meadowlark

And beautiful Stellar's Jays in the mountains.

Stellar's Jay

We found this Yellow-headed Blackbird in the marsh.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

And this little Rock Wren.

Rock Wren

On the lake, we saw 100+ American White Pelicans. They are pretty easy to spot but not usually close enough for a photo like this.

American White Pelican

Here is one of the life birds for me. McCown's Longspur which is a tiny sparrow-like bird that runs around in the grass. Very difficult to spot unless it runs across the dirt road like this one did.

McCown's Longspur

It is always a joy to find Rough-legged Hawks. This one perched on a fence post.

Roughie

Of course, there were other critters too. We were surprised to spot this Red Fox wandering along the side of the mountain road. Look at the long fur - alot different than the foxes in our yard.

Red Fox

Furry Fox

It is the big game that was really cool. Like these Bighorn Sheep.

Bighorn Sheep

Chewing on Grass

And the Pronghorn too. These were the animals that I really wanted to see. We saw a few that were very far away or close but then bolted when they saw us (Pronghorn are the fastest animal in North America) but these 2 didn't seem to mind our cameras snapping photos.

Pronghorn

Pronghorn

Snowy Foxy Day

We were all pretty shocked to wake up to snow today after having such mild weather. But there it was, snowing so I made sure to put plenty of birdseed out for the birds. Since I work from home alot, I put new feeders on the patio so that I can watch the birds from the office. The original feeders are still stocked out near the garage too. The birds were going crazy.

Imagine my surprise when a big red thing ran under the bush by the patio and then jumping around. I was on the phone with a customer and yelled "Oh my god, it's a fox". I grabbed my cell phone and started trying to get a video. You can see the fox behind the tree jumping straight up in the air.

Apparently he or she caught a mouse and was flipping it around. He played around a little and then left. I finished up on the phone and went into the kitchen to grab some lunch. I was pretty shocked to see the fox standing in our driveway.

Fox in the hen house? 

Look how beautiful he/she is. Apparently, he/she wanted dessert after his lunch and ate all of the peanuts and left the sunflower seeds.

Really fun stuff. Made the snow seem less cold.