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Every once is a while I get to see something I'd never seen before, and sometimes it is something I've wanted to see throughout my life.

Last night was one of those moments. From my life as a little kid, my friends and family did a lot of fishing in very remote areas, often staying in tents in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Many nights I fell asleep to the sound of whip-or-wills. Sometimes they could be annoying as they took up a roost right outside the tent.

Last night I was fishing a remote mountain lake, and I was on a narrow shoreline that had a lot of brush and downed trees all around me. I could hear whip-or-wills and owls all around the lake.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, a small bird fluttered right past the front of of my face, and landed about ten feet away on a thick branch of a downed pine tree. It immediately started its song -- it was almost ear splitting, but beautiful. If it had been a few feet further away, I would never have been able to see it. It blended almost perfectly with the bark on the pine branch. I continued to fish for about another 10 minutes, and it stayed and serenaded me.

When it was time to leave, I had to work my way through some pretty heavy brush, and the bird left.

This was a much happier moment than one last week we I got to meet only the second black widow in my life. I was hauling lumber trash in my front end loader. Some was good, some was going to the burn pit. As I got to the bottom piece for the burn pit, a black widow was under that board on the bottom of my loader. I took off before I could find a jar to catch it in.

Ken

Ken that is very cool. I too grew up in Wisconsin and my grand parents had a cabin in Rhinelander. We always had a whip-or-will come see us every night and sit on the top of the 10 foot tall cabin roof and just go to town. He would even let us shine a light on it and would not move. They are a very interesting bird for sure. I too had a moment like that the other day at my pond. I was getting my things together to finish up my Blue Heron fence and while walking down to the pond for the first time ever I actually saw a King Fisher dive right into my pond and try to get a fish out of it. He went all the way under for a second!! That was so cool I had never seen anything like that in real life not even in Wisonsin growing up as a kid had I ever seen a bird do what this bird did. I wasn't even concerned about the small fish it may get it was just to cool to see him move into that dive position and hammer that water! Gods creatures are something else that's for sure!!

Both are common around here Ken.

haven't heard any whiprwills here in northern wisc, but we do have morning doves which have a nice cooing call and lots of owls in the eve, by the pond

We used to see common nighthawks around my dad's old pond on a regular basis right around dusk feeding over the water. Lately at our place we have had a family of eastern screech owls (five of them) showing up right at dark next to the house, they are driving my german shorthair nuts.

Wow! That's wicked cool, Shorty!

Yeah, owls are way cool. About 5 springs ago there was a pair of barred owls that we figured were nesting in the woods near the house because we were seeing them daily. Then one day I was mowing the grass along the woods and something caught my eye up in a big white oak...

They had nested in a hollow where the owlet is sitting. The kids named him "squeeker".

The next spring they picked a hollow maple on the other side of the yard and the kids named this one "Bob"...


So I built a nesting box and hung it about 20' up a tree and they used it for 2 seasons. This shot is from our deck...


Evidently the pair of owls liked our place. I hope my kids never forget what a blessing it was, 'cause they likely will never experience something like that again.

vamaz, great pics!

How close were you to the owls in any of the pictures?

Ken, I used to see whip-or-wills sitting in the middle of the road fairly regularly driving around late at night when I was in college in PA. Certain areas seemed to have more of them, usually areas thick with mountain laurel.

vamaz, great photos! They are such neat birds to watch.

Wow nice work Shorty and Vamaz! Barred Owls are my favorite - not sure I've ever seen/heard a eastern screech. I would love to build a nest box like that, I didn't know they used them. Can you provide some background on their construction for us?

I second that TJ.. Details on the boxes..

Speaking or rare sightings, I saw rain on the local radar this evening, but of course it missed us here.

Neat pics!

I happened to look out the window this a.m. and a hawk streaked over the house with something in it's claws, and a horde of barn swallows right on it's tail.

CJBS - If you were like me when I was in college, I can only imagine what you were doing driving around late at nite!!!

The owls were really cool. They nested at different places around the yard 4 springs in a row. For a couple months each spring we got to observe their behavior on a daily basis like you might only see on a National Geographic show. The range of calls they make is amazing. Sometimes you'd swear there was a couple monkeys out there. It's been a couple years since any have nested here so it makes me wonder what has happened to that pair.

The pics of the owlets were easy. They don't spook, so you could walk right up to the base of the tree and take pictures. The box is about 100' from the back deck, so the pic of the Mom and the lil one was taken by a neighbor whos kind of an amature photographer. I asker her to come take some pictures for us and in exchange fed her tasty homebrews!

For construction plans for the box, I just did some googling and came up with several. I don't think I kept real tight to any of them, though, but took ideas from each. One plan included an "owlet ladder" that I thought was real important. For the last week or so that the owlets are in the nest, they start getting adventurous and like to spend the day roosting outside. But the box is so deep below the hole (about 12"?) that they need a little ladder because their wings are not nearly developed yet. Strangely enough, they don't develop enough to fly for a month or so after leaving, but are able to climb around in the trees with just their feet during which time the parents continue to feed them.

So what about a whip-or-will nesting box? Is there such a thing? Might have to google that!

I am a big nature lover myself. My pond was built in the middle of a corn field 15 years ago with 5 1/2 acres planted in different kinds of trees that are large now and draws all kinds of birds and animals. This latest birds to show up that I have rarely seen in my life are Baltimore Oriels. Another thing I have only see a few times in my life are red fox. A couple of days ago at the pond while standing on the deck something caught my eye in the cattails. A red fox came strolling by about 30 feet from me, looked at me in surprise and took off. Dolly my dog was under the deck and she charged off after the fox. The pond is great entertainment and keeps me young.

About 3 weeks ago I got a glimpse of a Scarlet Tanager flying. That's maybe the 2nd or 3rd time that I've ever seen one.

We get hoards of birds as I prioritize my land stewardship to help them, but I have only had one whip-or-will pass through one year. By the time my brain clicked on what I was hearing, it had moved on. I love them almost as much as I love the sounds of Loons.

I put up an owl-house for our screech owls, but so far they have refused to use it. Instead two years ago I got honeybees in it instead, which was cool except it started me down the path of bee-keeping which has become another irritant. (new thread for that one)

A lot of the birds mentioned in this thread I see commonly due to the varied cover I provide and the lack of regular mowing except in late fall I do in most areas of the property.

One of the most interesting birds my wife and I have seen in the field are the woodcocks. They are closely related to the whip-or-wills but have an amazing mating "dance" which is to be seen to believe.

What's cool is the pond is bringing in those additional water birds we never before got on our property like geese and killdeer, and we are hoping for some ducks and if really lucky mergansers and/or osprey. Both are in the area, but our pond is probably a bit too small to bring them in.

Liquidsquid I think nature shapes you as it does me. I started with a clean pond that I could cast for fish without any obstructions and my own swimming pool, but now I have something completely different. I have planted fruits and nuts like black walnuts, silk leaf dogwoods etc. for the birds and animals but some of the food is naturally there like raspberries, blackberries and mulberries. Much of what I expected to happen doesn't, like putting up a bat house, Martin house and Wood Duck house and not getting anything, and putting up Blue bird houses and getting Tree Swallows, while something as simple as a 10 foot patch of American Elodea, has up to three turtles in it and half a dozen frogs everyday when I walk past it. I am amazed at the different kinds of bugs I see when wading the pond. A few days ago I saw a pure white spider with the shape of the black widow. I wished I had my camera. About the time I think I have something figured out in nature, I don’t.

I haven't dug out the bird book, but whip-poor-will's feed on insects, catching them like martins and swallows and woodcock eat earthworms, pulling them out of the ground with their long bill. The woodcock bill actually is flexible at the tip, so they can poke into the ground and then move their bill to grab the worm. Since living out in the country I haven't seen a Nighthawk, where I used to see them in the city a lot.

We are on the western edge of the Baltimore oriole's territory. We've had exactly one nest on our property in 25 years...until this year when another bright orange bird built a nest in the tree outside mom's window. Orioles make awesome nests woven of grass that hang down from the branch. Cool stuff, wish we had more of them.

Had a king fisher sit on the top of the ladder on the dock within 15 feet of me this morning, and stay ther for a few minutes. I do not think that it knew I was there even though I was in plain sight. We do not see too many of these, and this is by far the closest encounter that I have had with one.

I saw Bruce Condello once....once.