May 5  9:45 pm please.

I clearly see two chicks and a pip in a third egg!   

A friend in North Chili recently posted a picture on Facebook of a pefa that regularily visits her backyard.  I was not able to identify the bird, but the peachy breast did look familiar. 

Pigott is the juvie at the Brighton site who keeps company with Dot.ca when he is not with his downtown family.

What you got under them feathers, Mommy?

Her foot is looking really good!

Although we are visiting Rochester this week, our home is now in Chattanooga, TN.  Our neighbors have kept us informed and the damaged areas of Chatt. are very close but not our neighborhood.  We are returning next week and expect a rough March and April as the warming weather is prime tornado season.

Donna, Maybe you didn't get any geese this winter because they are all at my brother's farm in Wayne County!  There are more and more arriving every day!  Must be close to a thousand if you count the ones coming and going on their way north.

Today we took a boat trip up the Tennessee River to the Hiawassee River and on to the Hiawassee Wildlife Preserve to observe the birds along the river.  The day was a bright and sunny 55 degrees with a brisk breeze.  About 25 people enjoyed the casual ride and wonderful commentary from our naturalist/captain.  During our 4 hour trip we saw several varieties of gull, many immature bald eagles, black vultures, turkey vultures, great blue herons and three or four of their rookeries, Canada geese, cormorants, mallards, a 12 year old bald eagle nest with mated pair of eagles sitting on eggs, and turkeys.

The highlight of the trip was the sight of hundreds and hundreds of sandhill cranes and 2 whooping cranes mixed in with their cousins!!  At one point the cranes took to the air by the hundreds, looking like a huge swirling cloud of wings.  I’ve never seen anything like it! 

We also watched kingfishers diving for their lunch, black vultures checking out some small caves along the river bluffs for nest sites and cormorants sunning themselves on the sandbanks.  The GB heron rookery trees contained as many as 11 or 12 nests per tree.  We also floated passed a bat cave that contained thousands of common brown bats (all sleeping at the time) that have not yet contracted the white nose disease.

Add in a delicious lunch and you have a wonderful, relaxing day of bird-watching in eastern Tennessee.  If you are ever in the Chattanooga area I highly recommend the Hiawassee Wildlife Preserve!

As soon as I can figure out my DH’s camera I will try to post some pics.

Thanks so much for the update.  It has been so long in coming, but I know I must be patient.  If Beauty returns to Rochester I am fearful of the outcome.  Time will tell.

This seems like such good news!  No broken bones or permanent injury to her eyes.  Now we wait until Beauty heals and "the powers that be" decide where to release her.

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Lizz, you're fairly close (at least relative to me) to the wildlife refuge where the Sandhills and the special Asian crane have been hanging out!  I can't quite bring myself to do a 5+ hour drive from Louisville, but I'm mighty tempted.
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Yes, this is about 30 minutes north of here.  I am caring for an ailing husband (broken foot) right now so haven't had a chance to get up there.  A friend who took a drive to Hiawassee said it was easy to view the birds and quite a treat to see the cranes, both sandhill and Asian.

Carol the best explanation I can give is that they put what they call a clean up bull with top quality genes in with inseminated heifers some of which it didn't take to make sure that they get pregnant. The bull knows which ones to mate with because if they are pregnant they don't go into heat. The bottom line is that they want a certain amount of calves in the same time frame for when they have a big sale. And they buy semen to insure no interbreeding but they sell way more than they buy. Does all that make sense!? PHEW!

You guys make me giggle!  I am a dairy farmer's daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and niece, so I have a little experience here.  Breeding cattle is not as complicated as it may seem.  Inbreeding (interbreeding) is less of a concern than you might think.  By the way, cattle are inseminated by artificial inseminators, not vets.
 

Lizz

This nest is about 15 minutes from our new home, just outside of Chattanooga, TN.  We moved here from Livingston Co. about 3+ years ago and enjoy keeping up with the Rochester falcons each day.  Now you can watch our eagles, too!

How inventive!

Thanks for sharing such a beautiful piece.  Your message comes through loud and clear.