Sunshine on the nest box makes me happy, Sunshine with no falcons makes me cry!!   By John Denver  

And 55 degrees to boot!

I have seen starling flocks like this and it is like a ballet.  I've often thought that if the image could be captured and set to music, it would be a ballet.     ...of course I really like starlings!   Interesting article.  Thanks, Donna, for posting!

 

Donna, this is so adorable!  Thank you!

I know jeanne, I like where the baby was clinging to the edge and she pulled him off and into the water. She don't mess around!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oImffW42Av0 Mom Otter teaches her babies how to swim.

OH my Bonnie, you have some wonderful pics today and the other day and the day before! Way to go!!! 

Oh boy, I hate these stories. I agree Kris, as long as momma knows where they are, she should go back to them. Robins are so skiddish around people. She's probably just waiting to go back. They have been known to dive bomb us humans. Let us know!!

Beauty just before Carol saw her and Archer on OCSR.

[Red]

Yesterday the Red team were eating, now it's the Green team!

And here's one behind bars.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rapid-city-peregrines#id8568831 Eating now on Cam

I know if I were in that building with the shade open and a falcon was right there in front of me, I'd be snapping pics like mad and posting them!! Sayin! 

Their displays have long proved a mystery. But, according to a new study, starlings are simple creatures.
It is one of the most striking sights of autumn. As days shorten and the weather cools, black clouds gather over Britain's skies. These dark spectacles have nothing to do with the weather, however. They are made up of thousands of starlings swirling and swooping in the air, performing aerial ballets that appear to be synchronised. Sometimes, flocks shift in shape from globes to hourglasses, thickening and thinning in the atmosphere.

The behaviour of these murmurations of starlings has puzzled scientists for years. Some researchers have argued that they are created by one or two starlings who lead the rest of the birds in these strange performances. Others have suggested more intriguing causes, such as the British ornithologist Edmund Selous who claimed the birds were responding to telepathic signals from their mates. But now a Dutch scientist, Charlotte Hemelrijk, of Groningen University, in an article in the online journal PLoS ONE, has proposed a far simpler idea: that this seemingly sophisticated behaviour can be explained using only a few simple behavioural rules. And not only are these rules true for starlings, she says, they are also true for other creatures such as fish.

In the case of starlings, Hemelrijk and her colleagues simply assumed that the birds are attracted to each other; that they move in the same direction as they return home to roosts after feeding; that they try to avoid colliding with each other; that they fly at the same speeds and that they bank when turning in the sky.

The scientists then created computer simulations of starlings that behaved by these rules and found that these shifts in the shape of flocks that have been observed in starlings could be shown to arise from relatively simple manoeuvres. For example, a flock that is flat and wide almost instantly becomes long and narrow merely by executing a basic 90-degree turn – perhaps as the result of an approach by a predator – because birds that were once flying abreast were now flying behind each other. In other words, these ballets in the sky are the automatic expression of simple acts of self-organisation.

Other factors, such as wind speed, were not included in the team's calculations, Hemelrijk admits, and will have to be addressed in future studies. Nevertheless, she insists, their model provides a valuable platform for understanding complex behaviour according to simple rules.



Guardian UK

Good thing I hit preview Ei, I had all the same pics and almost the same captions!    Posted the same on FB...lol

This is absolutely HEARTLESS! I am sick over this. They act like it's fun and NO I will not watch the video either. SICK!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkc8Mor9RTc#  I have been hearing this sound out back for 2 days now but don't see it so can't get a pic. Anyone know this sound? Thanks

Sad Day for Sea-EagleCAM
by EagleCAM on Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 3:58am

Today is a very sad day for Sea-EagleCAM and everyone following these eagles. Late yesterday, Friday 19th August, one of the eagle chicks died in the nest. It is believed by the Ustream chatters that the eaglet that perished was S1, the first chick that hatched on Sunday 14th. However, we are still trying to confirm which one has survived.   

 

From reviewing the High Definition video footage it has shown that as mum flew back onto the nest with a pigeon carcass, she tried to release her grip but her back talon got caught in the pigeon. She tried a number of times to let it go but it would not release. She stepped forward into the nest bowl and, as normal, crouched over the chicks but unfortunately dragged the pigeon into the nest bowl. Sometime later she flew off of the nest leaving the pigeon in the bowl and on her return she stepped in as normal. One of the chicks was standing in the bowl, the other was laying down and when mum sat down it forced both chicks into the side of the nest bowl. The chick that was upright was OK but the chick that was laying down had the pigeon forced against its face and against the wall of the bowl. We think that this pressure, combined with a wet carcass, was too much for such a young chick of about 4 to 5 days old to be able to deal with and its breathing was inhibited and it suffocated. The red colouring that was seen on mum’s feathers and on both of the chicks was from the pigeon carcass.

 

The surviving chick is doing well even after a cold and wet night (see the photos in the Chick 2011 photo folder) and we look forward to watching it grow towards fledging in November. 

OK, I get the hack idea - but why is it done? Do they take youngsters from failed nests? Are the bird captive-bred in the first place??

Maybe I should have read "About our Project" more carefully... captive-bred, huh? Only captive-bred?

Not only captive bred Bobbie. They will take 1 or 2 eyases from a nest or nests that had 3 or more eggs. They usually Hack to bring the species back to that particular area. Some have mixed feelings on Hacking but usually it's a success. By the time they are 40 days old, they will remove them and take them to the hack box where they are fed, watered and released after about 10 days. No human interaction.