Birds of Prey: Raptors and Habitat

Silence. In the heavy midday heat of the desert there is little movement except for occasional gusts of wind that stir up clouds of dust. A jack-rabbit bounds across a dirt road into a blanket of sagebrush that stretches to the horizon on all sides. The Owyhee Mountains are hazy in the distance, their puprple snow-capped peaks like a mirage. Circling high above the muddy Snake on some unseen current, an eagle moves slowly downward in sweeping spirals, a black silhouette of out-stretched, unmoving wings cutting through the desert sky like a knife.