First Egg - Panama City, FL Osprey Cam.

http://www.northwestfloridaonline.com/panhandleparade/index.php/externals/ospreycam/

http://www.northwestfloridaonline.com/panhandleparade/index.php/externals/ospreycam/

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091208/ARTICLES/912089898/1004/stormpost&tc=email_newsletter

Perhaps they are going to fix the leaky roof on the nest box?

Most forwarded emails go straight to trash, but this one was too good to ignore:


If a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:


When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you're not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

 Hey!   Some of us resemble that comment!  

But at age 60, I can now get away with saying it.  Caw, Caw!  

nwfloridafalconfan

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowfaq.htm#migrate

There has been a migration of "Old Crows" to Florida every winter for decades. 

nwfloridafalconfan

I agree with Dot in PA's concern about raw food and supermarket meats.  Much of the beef and chicken available to consumers has salt and other chemicals added to enhance flavor - that can't be good for urinary health.  We tried to go grainless with Diamond's Taste of the Wild canine and feline food. The cats loved it, the dogs were so-so about it.  When we read that Diamond will not certify that TOTW products are free of a certain cancer causing preservative, we switched to the Chicken Soup products, also put out by Diamond, until the urinary episode.  Our vet recommend Purina One Special Care for the cats over the more expensive Science Diet.  It gets some good consumer reviews http://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/one-purina-special-care-urinary-tract-health-formula-cat-food-reviews and the cats like it.  I know that the corn and grain based pet foods available in the grocery stores get a bad rap, but at this point, we're more inclined to trust the well known Purina brand over the possibly problematic Diamond.

nwfloridafalconfan   

 :star:Chipping is good!

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091011/ARTICLES/910111014/1002/stormpost&tc=email_newsletter

We switched to Diamond's "Chicken Soup" dog and cat food a couple of months ago after reading many glowing reviews and endorsements.  Two weeks ago, our 8 year old neutered male tabby, never before sick a day in his life, suffered an acute urinary blockage.  Two catheterizations and multiple IV treatments later, he has just about recovered.  While I can't directly tie his condition to his recent diet, our suspicions have caused us to abandon Diamond products and return to brands we've used without incident over the years.     

A couple of interesting bird items on the radio this morning:

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00040&segmentID=7

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00040&segmentID=8

nwfloridafalconfan

Something else to worry about.

The preliminary injunction was denied, but there is still hope for a favorable outcome:

"Without showing irreparable harm, the Plaintiffs have failed to meet their
burden for issuing a preliminary injunction. Even so, the Plaintiffs are likely to be
able to meet their burden to show the balance of equities tip in their favor. They
would also likely prevail in showing an injunction is in the public interest."

You can read the judge’s ruling here

   "I just wanted to beat my buddies to the punch" 

 The wolf hunt in Idaho continues because the judge who has the power to stop it hasn't made up his mind yet. Within hours of the official start of the season, 2 wolves were killed, a female tricked into the open with the sound of a wounded animal, and another who was said to be "harrassing" the hunter's horse.

What makes the wolf hunt so notable is that it is promoted and supported by lies.

Here's one of the lies: "The wolf population in the region has been growing by 20% to 30% every year." Let's look at that number. It's hard to find a hard number for the number of wolves in the region when they were first protected by the Endangered Species Act; some estimates go all the way down to 0. But let's take a very low number: 2. Two wolves, one breeding pair. And let's take the middle of that population growth figure: 25% per year. If that were true, there would be about 5000 wolves in the region, not the 1645 counted recently. Obviously the population has not been growing at the stated rate.

Another lie: "The wolves are wiping out the elk (and other ungulate) populations." This has been distilled into a popular bumper sticker: "Save 100 elk: Kill a wolf". But people with even the slightest knowledge of nature know that wolves do not wipe out their prey populations. They take the old and the sick. Wolves keep the elk populations strong and healthy.

Wolves also eat other animals, not just the big fancy ones that people want to kill themselves. They eat fish; they also eat mice and other rodents. Wolves keep the rodent population under control, thus wolves help farmers.

Shall I keep going? We're supposed to believe that, in Montana, two 80-pound wolves--one of them wounded by a gunshot--killed 120 200-pound rams in one night and --get this-- "piled [them] into a corner" of the pasture. That's an actual quote from the news article in The Missoulian.

But I can make all the arguments I want; the wolf hunt is based on irrationality, fear, and hatred. I don't know how to fight that. I said that yesterday and today I read in the Salt Lake City Tribune that someone with better credentials than I agrees with me:

Western Wildlife Conservancy Director Kirk Robinson called the wolf hunts "expressions of hostility" that aren't based on science.

http://kimbathewhitelion.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

The Bad Old Days Are Back

The wolf is one of the most hated species on the face of the earth, thanks to ignorance, misconception, and propaganda and lies actively created and spread for the purpose of keeping hatred of the animals alive.

By the 1970s, wolves in North America had been hunted to the brink of extinction. Then, in 1974, there came legal protection from the Endangered Species Act. The wolf population of the northern Rocky Mountains increased over the next 35 years. The population now numbers 1645 wolves.

Hundreds of scientists agree that the population needs to grow to 2500 to assure a sufficient gene pool for the health of the entire species. In other areas, where the wolf population is very low, wolves are showing severe physical defects because there simply is not any way for them to avoid inbreeding.

But the wolves have been de-listed from endangered species status. The government thinks that 150 wolves per state in the northern Rocky Mountain region is enough.

And so today the hunting begins. The hatred will be vented via high-powered rifles. And if you think all this isn't based in hatred, you haven't seen the posters people have created, comparing wolves to any and every icon of evil, such as Saddam Hussein.

There is a book, written by someone who actually observed real wolves in their real habitat. You may have heard of this book; it's called Never Cry Wolf, written by Farley Mowat. His extensive observations totally debunked the myth of the wolf as a wanton killer; he revealed the devoted family life of the wolf "pack", which actually is a family unit. The book is oddly hard to find; a search at amazon.com does not easily turn up the current in-print version. The link above will take you to exactly that page.

So with the wolf population nowhere near what it needs to be to be healthy, people are poised once again to ambush and decimate the population, tear apart family units, until the wolf is again on the brink of extinction. With only 1645 wolves across the entire northern Rocky Mountain region, 9000 hunters have bought wolf hunting licenses in Idaho alone.

It is a sad day for both the wolf and man.