I just went looking at the Cornell All About Birds website, and sure enough it says that they are sometimes heard during the day! 

Learn something new every day!  Thanks for the info.

In the last two months we have had a barred owl hanging around, which I think has a bad internal clock.  My neighbors and myself have been hearing this bird during the daylight hours.  Now, I'm not talking about an hour before sunset or an hour after sunrise.  This bird is hooting at two o'clock or so, in the the afternoon!  And this is day after day after day.  My neighbor's 4 year old son like to ride his bike up and down the block, and while doing so, will be imitating the owl's call.  That's how frequent this is! 

Has anybody ever heard of a neighborhood owl so wacked out like this?   

Fantastic article and video here of swallows activating an automatic door:

http://www.theprovince.com/technology/Video+Smart+swallows+trigger+automatic+doors+UVic+bike+locker+their+nest/9882033/story.html

Lobster meets starfish:

Starfish meets Lobster

All four eggs have hatched, and there are 4 cute, little squiggly babies.  

I just saw mom feeding the babies, and dad stuck his head into the box with a bug of some sort in his beak.  Mom took the bug from him and continued to feed it to the babies. 

I forgot to mention, that in looking at the calendar, I think this might be the second hatching this year.  The first is usually in early April, so there may or may not be another round after these babies fledge.   

My favorite webcams are with bluebirds.  The reason is because as the young get older, they react to sounds outside the box, no matter what it is (even thunder), only to sometimes be disappointed.  Their incubation period is not long, and bluebirds usually have 2 or 3 broods a year, so when they fly off, you could get a second or third round. 

For those that want to see the action from the beginning, here is a webcam just east of Pittsburgh, Pa., with the first little hatchling, and 3 more to come.  It is 24 hour and with sound.

http://www.westmorelandconservancy.org/BlueBirdWebcam-1.htm

It is 7:50 PM, the temp is 97 degrees!  After growing up just south of  Rochester, I've been down here (Florida and Alabama) since 1970 (with just a few breaks elsewhere).  I have yet to get used to the heat.  After 5 days with temps in the 100s, we are forecast to cool down to the mid-90s this week.  What we save on severe winter heating bills, we spend on AC.  But we don't shovel snow!

That's one thing I learned, NW, is how to tolerate the heat.  Since I did not have a car for 5 years, I had to walk everywhere.  And what you do next winter, is walk everyday for about 45-60 minutes.  And wear blue jeans.  Then every day walk 45-60 minutes, no matter how hot it gets--still wearing blue jeans; no shorts!  When the first cool day in the fall occurs, believe me it will feel cold!  That's when you know that you've gotten used to the heat. 

Hi Donna!

When I first moved to the South, it was in Sept. of 1979, and I moved to Tallahasse, Fl.  The first summer in the south was a brutal summer.  Dallas, Tx normally has something like 8 days a year over 100 and that year they had something like 35 straight days!  My co-workers kept saying, "it's so hot, it's so hot" and I kept saying to myself, "isnt' this normal?"  Well, over the years, I have found out that it was not normal!  I had no car at the time, so I had to walk or take the city bus everywhere, and you get used to the heat very quickly in conditions like that.

Another phrase that was said, when I lived there, was when it got hot, "don't go to Alabama!"  Now I'm in the NW suburbs of Atlanta, and on really hot days, I see that the phrase "don't go to Alabama" is true.  When Atlanta is above 95, Augusta, Macon and Columbus will be close to 100 and Montgomery will be over 100--by 2 or 3 degrees!  Usually.  The reason why Atlanta tends to be the "coolest" is because we are around 1200 feet above sea level. 

So, hopefully this heat wave breaks soon.  The good thing is that I just started a job in a warehouse--the first time I've ever been in an air conditioned warehouse. 

A new phase of eruptions has started at Mt Etna on the island of Sicily.  Here is a page that shows some daytime photos:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38378

And here is the webcam with the best view:

http://www.ct.ingv.it//sezioniesterne/webcam/Webcam.php?Vulcano=Esv

A webcam with thermal imaging is here:

http://www.ct.ingv.it/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=202

Hi Everyone!

I have discovered a new osprey cam that is located in Glacier National Park, Montana.  If you go to: http://www.nps.gov/glac/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm you will see a list of their cams.  The 6th one down the list is the osprey cam.  And it has a good view, too.  I also like the first and third cams that they have, the views are spectacular!  All of the cams update about every 30 seconds. 

The standoff is going on right now!  The owl wants to go out and get something to eat (I presume) and the pigeons won't let her.  Where the male owl is, I don't know.   

It was with the Barn Owls on the Cornell web site.  Both incidents are in Texas and both with Cornell's webcams.   Hmmmm. 

I don't know how many here go to the Cornell University birdcams, but up until the other day they had a wood duck cam that was in Greenville, Texas.  All of a sudden, I noticed that it was no longer there.  I saw the link for the archives, and decided to go there and see what was there and there was a link to the wood duck cam.  It turns out that a very large snake got into the box and not only feasted on the 13 eggs, but also killed the mom. 

http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/index

Going to review the tape for the precise time...

(now, will it let me post this finally?)

About 20 minutes after 7 (eastern), I thought I saw an egg under her.  She then moved and I couldn't see it until around 8pm she all of a sudden moved and you could see it.  It was the main camera where I thought I saw it.  

edit:  I just checked the archives and the main camera at 7:33 is when I saw it.