One day I took a walk with a friend along the edge of the Tolt river.  It's a fairly large flow of water that comes down out of the mountains and feeds into the Snoqualmie river in a town called Carnation.  It was a nice sunny day in late summer and I was saying my final goodbyes to a friend before coming back to Canada.

We found a spot on the edge of the river where we could look out over the flowing water to watch swallows hunting acrobatically & sandpipers skitting along the shoreline.

We had been sitting there for a few minutes when we noticed a little hole in the ground next to where we were sitting.  It was a small hole only a quarter of an inch in diameter.  We wondered about the insects that make their variety of holes and casually speculated if there might be something in the hole.

We went on with our conversation but then after a few minutes we noticed that the previously vacant opening was now obscured by the face of an insect.  We created a bit of vibration in our curiosity & it ducked back into the depths of the hole.

We watched & waited until half a minute later the creature had emerged to the mouth of the tunnel again.  It looked like it was just waiting for something to come along.

My friend grabbed a piece of grass and started slowly moving it in towards the hold so we could see what would happen.  Would the insect attack the grass?

She had to move the grass very slowly because the slightest movement from overhead would send the insect diving back into its hole.  After a couple failed attempts that sent it racing into the depths of the earth we got the grass within inches of the hole. 

The tension was building as she lowered it more & more, Closer & closer. Just when we thought it couldn't get any closer the insect lunged out of the hole & grabbed the grass but upon realizing that it wasn't an agreeable target, retreated back down into the earth.  It happened really fast.

After a few times of seeing the pattern repeat we were confident that we had learned it's hunting strategy and we decided to leave the poor critter alone.

When we got back from our walk we looked it up in an insect track & sign book.  We found the exact behavior described in the book & discovered that our mystery insect was the larvae of a tiger beetle.

It was so funny to see the same observations we had just made written almost word for word in the field guide as though a researcher somewhere had once enacted the same experiment we just performed on the edge of the Tolt river... The crazy things we do for science and entertainment.

In my last post Crazy Sounds from Barred Owls I told the story of how I discovered a Barred Owl was responsible for some strange noises that I had been hearing around my property.  Today I'll share the mind blowing events that unfolded in the week that followed...

I had finally discovered that the strange noise being made in the treetops was a juvenile barred owl.  It was so strange to see how different yet similar they are to adults.  I couldn't really tell any difference in the field markings but there was something about the way the owl looked that screamed "inexperienced animal."

It was really fun to watch how the birds responded to this predatory energy in the landscape. 

When I first saw it up in the oak tree, all the woodpeckers that feed in our backyard were alarming and circling up to watch the owl.  This was the first time I could ever truly confirm hairy woodpecker alarm calls and it was very instructive to learn about their behavior.  They didn’t so much make any different calls than they usually do but their alarm calls were more frequent than usual and they hopped up the trees to make a big circle around the owl.  Nuthatches were getting in on the alarms too.  At one point the owl swooped in after one of the woodpeckers but missed.  He seemed to accept defeat at that point because he flew off and the woodpeckers chilled out.

Over the next few days I saw the owl a few more times.  Usually for a good part of every day I could go out and hear alarms coming from various parts of the landscape.  It was obviously hanging out close by.

Then one evening I was sitting at my desk when at the window I caught some movement out of my eye and heard the thwap as a large wing hit my window!  I was certain it was the barred owl and rushed to look out.  It seemed to have pounced on something and then disappeared.  I ran outside and looked out into the fading light over the lawn and sitting on top of our bean trellis was the Barred Owl.

It looked at me briefly & then swooped down into the garden.  That’s when I heard the airy whistle sound again but it wasn’t coming from where I expected.  I looked up and sitting on our pea trellis was a second Owl.

I couldn’t believe it.  Now there were two of them.  The first one flew up to a low perch and the newly located owl pounced down onto the lawn.  I found a place to sit and watch.  They did this sequence of behavior over and over again.  Perching low for a bit and then diving down apparently attempting to catch something on the ground. 

So what were they hunting? Can you guess what it was?

I was in utter amazement of what I was seeing and as the light faded the cricket chorus was incredible.  The scene seemed like something out of a fantasy.  It’s not every day you get to watch the synchronized hunting patterns of two Juvenile Barred owls. It seemed too good to be true. 

But I still had this question of what the owls were hunting.  Why do they keep pouncing down like that?  Are they missing their target?  Maybe they’re hunting something that’s very abundant. 

I watched one dive down and then like a vacuum of silence where it had pounced the cricket chorus stopped and I suddenly realized what they were hunting.  The cricket larder was on and they were having a feast on my lawn.  What better way for Juvenile owls to hone their hunting skills than by practicing with large tasty insects that make a lot of noise?

As the last light waned from the sky I moved quietly back across the lawn trying to not disturb the crickets in their songs and slipped inside the house to leave the owls in their hunting.

A few weeks ago I was visiting with some friends in Western Washington.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we had laid out a blanket on the grass to catch some sun when I noticed out of the corner of my eye some movement in the grass next to me.  I turned my head and realized that it was a worm.  But there was something different about this worm.

First of all, in this weather and time of day the worms are supposed to be below the surface. And second... it was moving at top speed for a worm.  I've never seen a worm move as fast as this one and it looked really bizarre.

I leaned in closer to get a better look and realized that it was running away from a long skinny beetle larva with razor sharp teeth. 

This miniscule insect was attacking the worm!

I called out to my friends. "Holy crap, come look at this."

We all gathered around and watched as the little larva at a significantly smaller size would latch onto the worm and tear chunks of flesh off.  It was a gruesome battle that continued on for several minutes.

Towards the end it looked as though the Larva was trying to pull the worm down underground but it eventually gave up. Suddenly, it scurried under the dirt and left the worm to dry in the hot sun. 

The worm was still alive so we picked it up and placed it in the shade of a shrub in the garden where it could recuperate and stay moist.

This whole sequence reminded me that small creatures like worms and insects often provide some of the best opportunities to practice nature observation.  It's extremely rare to get to watch a hunting coyote from start to finish but with the smaller critters there is a constant stream of stories to be gathered all around us if we can just look closely enough.

As a tracker, I'm always looking for the larger stories that are connected to the wildlife signs that I find.  Usually when I see a string of tracks from a large mammal, I only get a snippet of the story because it takes place over such a large area.  I love being reminded that with things like insects there are entire stories and lives written in just a few square feet. 

They are some of the best teachers and really fun to watch.