!!! No One in Sight!
July 20, 2011 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Kathy Reports:

The heat is really weighing down on everyone, including our falcon family.  I have only seen mom two times in the past week and that was very briefly, no doubt she’s perching somewhere shady these days.  No sighting of Jack for over a week either.

The boys were last sighted last Wednesday when one of them was aggressively harassing mom for food, hopefully he was just acting spoiled and is not having difficulty hunting.  Last year I witnessed the same behaviour from Blackberry so I’m hoping this isn’t a case of deja vu.   I havent’ seen or heard either of them since then so they may have dispersed already, hopefully they will stay safe as they explore the world out there.

It’s been a strange year again especially since Jupiter’s passing and with this unbearable heat which was preceded by record cold and rainfall early on.   That being said, it’s been amazing to see how they adapt to situations and do what they can to safeguard their offspring and give them a better chance at survival.

A possible Harlie sighting. Looks to me like she just had a meal.

[Lady Lamont Goes Out on Her Own, I Hope!July 19, 2011 - Burlington - Lift BridgeSue McCreadie Reports:]

Lady Lamont Goes Out on Her Own, I Hope!
July 19, 2011 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Sue McCreadie Reports:

During our last 3 visits (July 18th Evening, July 19th Morning, July 19th Evening) there has been no sign of Lady Lamont.  I hope it’s just because she had decided to go out on her own.  Of the two girls, she seemed to be the most advanced.  That of course means that Lady Nelson is getting all the attention.  Tonight while we were there, Dad made two food drops and after that, she was still screaming and chasing him for more.  Mom watched the goings on from the Hamilton Hydro Tower.

Last evening (July 18th) we witnessed a food transfer from Dad to Lady Nelson, who proceeded to drop it, but then went into a dive and made the save.

The young here are hard to keep track of
July 19, 2011 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:

Just when I think there is only 1 juvie left here, 2 falcons streak by just squawking their heads off. I’m not sure if it is a juvie & an adult or 2 juvies. They are gone in a flash & I can’t capture it on camera. Not only that but the sky does not allow me to see any distinctive coloring of the birds. Today I saw Mom carrying a food package in full flight, one of the young was following her closely & snatched it out of her talons. I have attached a photo of what I believe to be Olivia landing high atop the grain elevator next door to our facility this evening.

[Happy 2nd birthday Tester!!]

Happy 2nd birthday Tester!!

It's official. Newport News Park is a place where the bald eagles roam — and raise their chicks.

A bald eagle nest can be seen at the overlook off of the Wynn's Mill Loop section of the White Oak Trail at Newport News Park, said Bryan Watts, director of William & Mary's Center for Conservation Biology. The nest is in a swampy area in one of the more remote sections of the 8,000-acre park.
The center tracks eagle's nests throughout the state, and with 177 nesting pairs along the James River 2011 is said to be a record year for the bald eagle population. For the past 50 years, the center's staff has used low-lying planes to fly over nesting areas and count the eagle's nests. Once an endangered species, the eagles have made a dramatic comeback, Watts said.

"The growth has just been phenomenal," said Watts, who credits the ban on the pesticide DDT for the resurgence.

Bald eagles were removed from the endangered species list in 1995 and from the threatened species list in 2007.

The nesting pair in Newport News Park has produced 11 chicks, Watts said, although it may not be the same nesting pair for all nine years. Bald eagles returned to Newport News Park in 2002 after about a 30-year-absence.

They co-habitate with great blue herons, which is unusual but not unheard of, Watts said.

"Exactly how they co-habitate, I don't know," he said. "Their ecosystems are similar. They both require large, old trees for nesting."

Watts said that when you consider how the eagle population is growing, and because the reservoir is right there, he would not be surprised to see another nesting pair become established on the opposite side of the reservoir.

Jane Frigo, a member of the Hampton Roads Bird Club, said she's seen bald eagles in Newport News Park for about the past five years, although she's never seen the nest.

"We used to get real excited when spotting bald eagles, because they were so rare," Frigo said.

She said she has also spotted eagles in her neighborhood near City Center, which years ago was unheard of.

Watts said that about five percent of bald eagles are now nesting in more urban settings.

dailypress

A Rock Pigeon bobs its head as it walks, making it appear that its head and feet are linked. Pigeons’ eyes are on the sides of their heads, permitting them to watch for predators from all directions, but limiting their ability to distinguish distances. To compensate, these birds move their heads and can see differences in apparent motion between nearby and distant objects.



(BirdNote)

[Happy Feet set for ocean journey soon]

Happy Feet set for ocean journey soon

Happy Feet may be leaving New Zealand shores as early as next month.

The emperor penguin has been cared for at the Wellington Zoo since it was found on Peka Peka Beach last month.

Zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker told the Herald last night that Happy Feet could be returned to the Southern Ocean as early as next month.

"It's looking like it will be about mid to late August. Right now we're just figuring out how we will release him," she said.

Ms Baker said the penguin was doing better and better each day and had gained 1.6kg when he was weighed on Friday.

He is about 24kg now, she said.

"At this stage, we're still taking care of him, obviously. He's continuing to gain weight and is looking good."

More than 600 broad-billed prion birds are being cared for at the zoo.

The injured birds are among hundreds found on the country's beaches after a massive storm last week.

Therefore Happy Feet was no longer the only bird in the spotlight, Ms Baker said.

"He's still a favourite with staff, though."

The zoo is still receiving donations from the public for the Happy Feet appeal.

By July, most songbirds are in the final stages of raising their young, but not the American Goldfinches.

These appealing, colorful birds are just getting started.

Notoriously late nesters, goldfinches have been waiting for the thistles to bloom. When this happens in July, it signals the goldfinches that they can start building their nests which are made primarily of the silver fibers and down of thistle blooms. Generally, the nest is built in the fork of a horizontal tree limb, 4 to 14 feet above the ground.

The female builds a durable, neat cup of thistle and cattail fibers, so dense that it will hold water. In it she lays 4 to 6 pale blue to white eggs and then she incubates them for 12 to 14 days, until they hatch. The attentive male often feeds his mate while she sits on the nest.

By the time the eggs hatch, the thistle has gone to seed, which is perfect timing for feeding young goldfinches. The parents nourish this chicks by consuming the thistle seed themselves, and then regurgitating the partially digested, milklike cereal into the mouths of their nestlings. This is as close as birds come to mammals that feed their young milk from mammary glands.

Baby goldfinches are fully feathered and out of the nest 10 to 16 days later. Almost immediately, they join their parents at bird feeders across America. That’s when many people suddenly notice so many goldfinches as the summer progresses.

  Male
female

enature

This week’s Grizzly Bear attack in Yellowstone prompted several folks to ask us to rerun this story from a few months back.


It’s a lot safer out there than TV’s Shark Week or When Animals Attack would lead you to believe.

Sometimes fear serves us well. It keeps us from taunting bears, which is definitely a good thing. But fear can also be unfounded. As the numbers prove, the animals that most likely scare people the most seldom pose a real threat.

Consider the snake. Of the 137 different snake species in the United States, only 20 are venomous, and the majority of these are rattlesnakes, which thankfully carry warning devices (rattles) to alert potential victims.

The risks of a harmful snakebite are further reduced by the fact that half of all the bites administered by venomous snakes are benign—no venom is released. Thus in the United States, where some 7,000 snakebites are reported annually, a mere 15 or so prove fatal.

Another feared animal is the spider. The best known venomous U.S. species are the widows, which reside in all the lower 48 states. But despite their tendency to live near human habitations, widows are very shy, and it usually takes some effort to get close to them.

The other famous “deadly� spider in our area is the Brown Recluse. It’s found only in a handful of states, and even their bites are rare. As for tarantulas, our scariest spiders, the truth is that there are no dangerously poisonous tarantulas anywhere in the world.

Like spiders, bats are almost universally feared, so it’s probably a good thing that few people know just how many species are out there. Most states have more than 10 species of bats, and roughly 1,000 species exist worldwide.

But the only time bats pose a threat to humans is as carriers of rabies. Even then the threat is infinitesimal. A Colorado study showed that of 233 cases of bats biting humans, where 30 percent of the bats were rabid, none of the victims contracted the disease.

The most widespread large predator in the United States, meanwhile, is the Mountain Lion, and as its numbers increase in areas, the fear of attacks rises. But even among researchers who devote huge amounts of time to tracking these animals, many have never seen a live specimen in the wild. During the entire last century there were only 12 recorded fatalities attributed to Mountain Lions in all of Canada and the United States.

And then there are sharks, which are probably responsible for keeping more people out of the water than the smaller organisms that should really be feared. Annually in the United States there are less than a dozen shark attacks, with one or two fatalities. By comparison, some 300 people are struck by lightning every year.

The numbers don’t lie. Without a doubt, the most dangerous thing a person can do when embarking on an outdoor adventure is driving to the trailhead in a car.

So head on out and enjoy nature— just be careful if you have to drive to get there!

Ghost faced bat

There’s a reason construction workers don’t operate jackhammers with their foreheads.

Well, there are several reasons, but one is to avoid concussions. But what protects the woodpecker from similar injuries?

For starters, the woodpecker maintains a perfectly straight strike as it bores into a tree — like a machine almost — which minimizes the rotational forces on its brain. And it’s these rotational forces that sever neuronal connections and result in concussions.

Also, the woodpecker’s brain fits snugly in its skull, and the bone around the brain is dense yet somewhat forgiving. Experts have likened this bone to the foam inside crash helmets.

The muscles in the woodpecker’s head, which contract to absorb and distribute shocks, provide further protection. The same holds true for the woodpecker’s tongue, the base of which wraps around the bird’s brain.

And not all woodpeckers are using their heads on trees when they’re making noise.  The Nothern Flicker, also known as the Yellow-shafted Flicker (or the Yellowhammer to fans of the University of Alabama football team) is known for drumming against buildings, trees, other solid objects—even cars!.  This behavior has been observed in many other woodpecker species as well.

Flickers seem to particularly love the gutters of suburban homes— and for some reason often pick early Sunday mornings to demonstrate just how loud they can be!

Gold-fronted Woodpecker
enature

Newswise — For one species of seabird in the Galápagos, the child abuse “cycle of violence� found in humans plays out in the wild.

The new study of Nazca boobies by Wake Forest University researchers provides the first evidence from the animal world showing those who are abused when they are young often grow up to be abusers. The study appears online this week in the ornithology journal, The Auk. It is scheduled for publication in the October print edition.

“We were surprised by the intense interest that many adults show in unrelated young, involving really rough treatment,� said Wake Forest Professor of Biology Dave Anderson, who led the study with Wake Forest graduate student Martina Müller. “A bird’s history as a target of abuse proved to be a strong predictor of its adult behavior.�

In Nazca boobies, traumatic abuse of developing young significantly increases the chances those maltreated individuals will exhibit the same maltreatment later in life as adults, Müller said. She is now at the University of Groeningen in the Netherlands.

The ocean-going seabirds live in colonies in the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Among Nazca boobies, victimization by adults on other birds’ chicks is widespread. They raise solitary nestlings on the ground and frequently leave their offspring unattended while foraging at sea. So, there is much opportunity for adult birds to bully and beat up neighbor nestlings.

The abusive adults patrol the breeding colony, searching for unguarded chicks. They frequently bite and peck the chicks, and even make sexual advances, sometimes leaving the chicks bleeding and stressed. Female adults show more aggressive behavior than males do, on average.

The young birds nest years later in the colony where they were born, making them ideal models for studying the effects of “chick� abuse on lifelong behavior.

The researchers collected data during three breeding seasons documenting which nestlings suffered abuse or neglect, then several years later evaluated their behavior as adults in the same colony. They tracked the birds and identified them using leg bands.

The findings shed important light on animal behavior. “This is not some contrived experimental situation with freaked out captive animals. This is an animal in a natural situation experiencing natural stressors when young. And, the outcome is their behavior later is influenced by the social stress they experienced,� Anderson said. “As we determine how similar the physiology of this response is to the human situation, we may find opportunities for research on this stress response that are not possible to do with humans.�

Co-authors on the study included Wake Forest graduate students Elaine T. Porter, Jacquelyn K. Grace, Jill A. Awkerman, and Mark A. Westbrock and technicians Kevin T. Birchler, Alex R. Gunderson, and Eric G. Schneider.

A Nazca booby attacks a nestling (Caption)

[The extreme heat and persistent drought seen in much of Texas is taking its toll on wildlife, with deer, birds and other animals abandoning their young because they are unable to feed them.]

as scorching weather breaks 1000 U.S. temperature records in a month

The extreme heat and persistent drought seen in much of Texas is taking its toll on wildlife, with deer, birds and other animals abandoning their young because they are  unable to feed them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016236/US-heatwave-Weather-forecasters-warn-6-days-100-plus-temperatures.html

Adios!

I'd like to join in!! Very COOL!!

Howdy all! Haven't tuned in in awhile, as super-busy at work, but nice to read Mark's report that Harlequin is now out of the danger period. Certainly as evidenced right now, she is flying beautifully, circling about in the sky above the buildings here! Walking into work this morning, I could hear her vocalizing, so must have been close to breakfast time! Yesterday I witnessed a feeding with Quest: both of them crammed onto one of those little square posts that juts out from the nest building. Harlequin seems to prefer sitting on these to the proper ledges, from what I've noticed. Hmm.

In any regard, I've been seeing lots of aerial action around here. Yesterday both Harlequin and Quest flew toward my window and swooped upward right in front of me: breathtaking! Loving having this little family nearby: certainly makes the workday much more fun!

Oh YAY Kat, thought you might be busy, so we didn't want to hound you. So glad Harlequin is doing so well and keeping you entertained. Your so lucky to have them right outside your window. Thanks so much.