[it inserts a claw through the cranium of the bird, in the middle of thecrown of the head in a lightning fast trepanning.]

When the peregrine falcon attacks, it nosedives towards the bird it will take,
With one claw it hits the bird, not over the back or in the neck, but with surgical
accuracy it inserts a claw through the cranium of the bird, in the middle of the
crown of the head in a lightning fast trepanning. In the hands of a talented falktamer,
an enlightened falconer, the peregrine falcon becomes identical with its
archetype, with the human thought. Man and bird become one being, they live
together day and night, until the man becomes the bird and the bird becomes the
man. In other words it becomes a part of him that it has always symbolized—the
hens and roosters without discovering that the hen is created in the image of a
woman and the rooster in the man’s, must have not paid attention. Nature points

loquacity are serious warnings. A normal man should blush when he sees a
rooster. The hen, at least, can lay an egg.

   
      
Alcoa Anglesea Peregrine Falcon Webcam
 
Monday September 6, 2010
 
This week we have received several enquiries asking for clarification on what has happened to Sheila.

With the appearance of a new female in Sheila's breeding territory it is most likely that Sheila has died.  We have not found any physical evidence of Sheila but given the appearance on a new female, it is the most likely assumption.  Peregrine falcons mate for life, it would be almost impossible for another female to breed with Havoc if Sheila was alive.  It is only if a member of the pair dies, the surviving falcon (in this case Havoc) will accept a replacement mate.

!!! Ossler-Labour Day Weekend Updates
September 06, 2010 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Bruce Massey Reports:

     Managed to make it out to Ossler 3 out of 4 Days.  First of all, Friday Morning I had the Male Adult and both Juveniles but not the Adult Female, first thing. I spent about 2 Hours Total.  On Saturday, even though I didn’t do an official check, I happened to be in the neighbourhood and drove by around 1330 Hrs. and saw a Peregrine on the East  “ Hâ€� sign, however it was too far away to identify as Adult or Juvenile.

     Yesterday, I arrived on site around 1700 Hrs for around 2 hours, and only saw the Adult Male not the  Juveniles.  Today, (Monday) I arrived in the earl AM, but because of the Weather only stayed an Hour or so.  Again I only observed the Adult Male and didn’t see any of the other 3.

    As only an aside, or a coincidence, over the last 3 days there have been a total of 3 Peregrines through Holiday Beach Hawk Watch, however 2 went through on Sept. 3 and 1 through Sept. 5.

So sad!  I hope the Lady the Osprey will be ok. 

I am mesmerized, Donna, by the picture of Kaver under your name!  I miss him

Thanks jeanne, I love that pic also and I miss him just as you do. 

I agree, one beautiful Female. Great job Joyce, ya done good! Thank you. 

The world of birding is full of myths. Some have been handed down for generations, while others have cropped up more recently.

When it comes to winter birding, it seems there are more myths than usual. Here are a few of the common ones I know. Hopefully, I can help debunk these myths once and for all!

Myth #1:
Birds will freeze to death when temperatures get well below 0°.

Fact:
Birds are well equipped to survive the coldest of temperatures. They store fat during the short days of winter to keep themselves warm during the long nights.

During those freezing nights, they fluff their feathers to trap heat and slow their metabolism to conserve energy. They also look for good places to roost, whether it's a birdhouse, natural tree cavity, grass thicket, evergreen or shrub.

Myth #2:
American robins always fly south for winter.

Fact:
If there is sufficient food on their breeding grounds, American robins, bluebirds, and a host of finches and owls remain in the area where they spent the summer.

Myth #3:
You should take birdhouses down in winter because birds don't use them.

Fact:
On the contrary — a birdhouse makes a great roosting house in winter. Eastern bluebirds will pile into houses to spend cold nights. One photographer once even snapped a picture of 13 male bluebirds in a single house!

Myth #4:
If you leave town during winter, the birds that rely on the food from your feeders will die.

Fact:
Research has proven this one wrong. Scientists have shown that chickadees, for example, will eat only 25% of their daily winter food from feeders. They find the other 75% in the wild.

In addition, with so many people feeding them nowadays, birds in your yard will simply fly to a nearby neighbor to get their food until you return home.

Myth #5:
All hummingbirds migrate south for winter.

Fact:
Though most hummingbird species in North America do migrate south for the winter, the Anna's hummingbird remains on its West Coast breeding grounds.

Myth #6:
Birds always migrate in flocks.

Fact:
Though many birds migrate in flocks-common nighthawks, American robins, swallows and European starlings, for example-other species migrate alone.

The most amazing example of this is a juvenile hummingbird that has never migrated before, yet knows when to fly, where to fly, how far to fly and when to stop. And it does this all alone.

Myth #7:
Migration means north in the spring and south in the winter.

Fact:
Some bird species migrate to higher elevations in the spring and down to lower elevations in the winter. Examples include rosy finches and ptarmigans in the West.

Myth #8:
Birds' feet will stick to metal bird feeders and suet cages.

Fact:
Most suet cages have a laminated covering, so you don't have to worry about birds' feet sticking to it. But in general, their feet can endure cold weather. Birds have a protective scale-like covering on their feet, and special veins and arteries that keep their feet warm.

Myth #9:
Peanut butter will get stuck in birds' throats, and they will choke.

Fact:
Peanut butter is a very nourishing food for birds, especially in winter when the production of fat is important to their survival. The myth that it will stick in their throats simply isn't true.

Myth #10:
American goldfinches are bright yellow year-round.

Fact:
As fall approaches, American goldfinches lose their bright-yellow plumages, replacing them with feathers that are a dull, brownish-green. Many people don't recognize these birds in winter, even though duller-colored birds are still at the feeders. They assume that their "wild canaries" have migrated south for winter.

Myth #11:
Woodpeckers drill on house siding in winter for food or to create nesting cavities.

Fact:
Though there are cases where woodpeckers find food in wood siding (and may even nest inside the boards), nearly all the drilling in late winter is done to make a noise to court mates. This is their way of singing a song to declare territory.

Myth #12:
If you have warm water in a birdbath when the temperature is below freezing, birds will bathe in it and freeze to death from wet feathers.

Fact:
Birds will drink from a heated birdbath, but if the temperature is well below freezing, they will not bathe in it and get their feathers wet.

If you're still worried, offer warm water to drink, but make it too deep or inaccessible for the birds to bathe in.


Fluffed up from cold

If you raise a wild bird such as a pigeon, bluejay, mockingbird, etc. it will bond (imprint with humans) and be tame for life, unable to make it in on their own in the wild.

False!
This is so very false, when a bird is ready to fly away, it will. It is the most basic primitive instinct in the bird ~~ to spread those wings and take flight. How could anyone believe this myth? Ever tried leaving a cage or parakeets or cockatiels open? They are gone gone gone no matter who raised them, no matter how tame. Same applies to much larger parrots. They fly away!!

Pigeons carry diseases and even avian flu

False!
"Pigeons are not a public health hazard. Nobody in public health is losing any sleep over pigeons."

Top 10 Bird-Feeding Myths
by Bill Thompson, III
Editor, Bird Watcher's Digest

10. Feeders Keep Birds From Migrating. If this were true, we'd have hummingbirds and orioles clinging to our feeders all winter long. Birds migrate when their natural internal "clocks" give them the urge to migrate. Migration is driven by instinct and external factors such as sunlight and weather, not by the availability of sunflower seed or food at feeders. One thing to note is that birds need extra food during migration, so it's a nice idea to keep your feeders stocked in case a hungry migrant plops down in your yard looking for food.

9. Bird Feeding Is Really Bad/Good for Birds. Let's face it, birds did just fine before we decided, a few hundred years ago, to feed them. Birds do not need the food we provide for them. It's a nice compromise between our desire to see birds in our backyards and the birds' willingness to take advantage of our largesse. Birds do not rely solely on our feeders for their survival, and they certainly do not rely on our feeders for necessary nutrients, so it's wrong to say that feeding is "good" for birds. By the same token, when bird feeding is done in a conscientious manner, it is also not bad for birds. Yes, messy feeding stations can harbor disease, and food can sometimes spoil at our feeders, but if these scenarios are avoided, bird feeding is enjoyable for us and attractive to the birds. If you wish to stretch the argument to include whether millions of bird feeders have an impact on bird populations, then yes, we can argue about the negative effects of bird feeding. But let's not do that now. Let's go on to the next myth.…

8. Birds Will Starve if You Stop Feeding in Winter. Birds have evolved over the eons as incredibly adaptive, mobile creatures. Unless a bird is sick or debilitated, it can use its wings (or legs) to range far and wide in search of food. Birds that cannot move in search of food are likely doomed to perish anyway, which is part of the natural scheme of things. So when you're going away on vacation for two weeks in the middle of a cold, snowy winter spell, it's nice if you can arrange for a neighbor to keep your feeders filled. Most serious feeder operators wouldn't think of letting their feeders go empty. But if it happens while you're gone, as it has happened to me, realize that your birds did not all starve, they just went somewhere else to find food. Now you'll have to work to lure them back!

7. The Mixed Seed at the Grocery Store Is Bad. I believed this with all my heart until recently when I saw some decent mixed birdseed for sale at a fancy grocery store. Granted, the stuff at my local chain grocery store is still absolute junk, unfit for rock doves. But some seed producers seem to be getting the message that quality seed is worth selling. The trick to telling the junk seed from the better stuff is to read the ingredients. Junk seed has almost none of the following: black-oil sunflower, peanut bits, safflower, millet, or sunflower hearts. It will have lots of milo, wheat, barley, cracked corn, and upon visual inspection, perhaps some empty hulls, sticks, and other inedibles. The best mixes feature a hearty helping of sunflower seed in some form.

6. Birds Won't Eat Milo. Years ago in an early issue of Bird Watcher's Digest, one of our editorial cartoons stated emphatically that "Real Birds Don't Eat Milo." Readers in the eastern half of North America nodded in agreement, but those folks in the Southwest howled their ridicule and protested loudly. Red milo is a staple of western bird feeding, especially in the Southwest where a variety of quail, doves, towhees, and sparrows readily eat it. In the East and upper Midwest, birds don't seem to eat milo much at all, so any mixed seed with a large percentage of milo will probably go mostly uneaten.

5. Blackbirds/Squirrels Won't Eat Safflower Seed. Safflower was once considered by many feeder operators to be the anti-blackbird and anti-squirrel food. Cardinals seemed to love it, but blackbirds and squirrels did not. That's not really true anymore, but nobody knows why. Many folks who feed safflower report that any bird or mammal that eats sunflower will also eat safflower. Safflower seed is still a nice alternative food to offer&emdash;it works in any feeder suitable for sunflower seed and it can be bought in bulk at feed stores. A blackbird and squirrel deterrent it is not, but then again, what is?

Maybe a Blue-winged warbler...but what do I know?

http://www.pbase.com/shellyva/eagles Great pics of the eagles and juvies

Ornithologists have found that species including the turtle dove, willow warbler, tree pipit and redstart are struggling to find enough food in the weeks before they set off in the spring to fly to the UK.

The scientists believe that years of poor rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced supplies of the seeds, fruits and insects which the birds rely on to build up vital energy supplies. The finding could explain a steep decline which has led to many migratory birds being listed as threatened species in the past decade.

Conservationists had been searching for an explanation, with some blaming farming practices in the UK including the removal of hedgerows and the widespread use of pesticides.

Researchers at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), who will present their results at the annual conference of the British Ecological Society on Tuesday, looked at populations of 16 bird species over the past 40 years, during which time some have declined by as much as 85%.

They found that migratory bird populations in the UK fluctuate annually by as much as one-third in some species, depending on the wet-season rainfall levels in Africa and levels of vegetation cover, which were measured from satellite images.

Migratory birds tend to arrive in Britain around April. After nesting and breeding, they depart around October. Many overwinter in west Africa and the Sahel region on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert.

The birds arrive in Africa at the end of the rainy season when there is lots of food available, but over the following months conditions get progressively drier. It is the amount of rainfall in the rainy season that determines how long the resources last.

Dr Nancy Ockendon, a research ecologist at the BTO, said: "If it has been a dry year, by the time the spring comes and the birds are thinking about building up the reserves they need to fly back over the Sahara, there is much less available to them and this affects the number of birds making it back to Britain.

"They are either just not surviving the journey or it takes them too long to get the reserves they need and they are too late to leave. We don't know the mechanisms yet and our work is still ongoing."

The tree pipit, a rare bird which spends the winter in west Africa, has experienced an 85% drop in numbers since 1966. Turtle dove numbers have fallen by the same amount.

The whitethroat and sedge warbler, both threatened species which spend winters in the Sahel, have declined by 67% and 41% respectively. The redstart, which migrates to west Africa, has declined by 14%.

Even species which spend their winters further south in Africa where rainfall is more consistent, such as the swallow and the willow warbler, can still be affected by rainfall levels in the Sahel.

The researchers believe this may be because they stop off in the region on their way back to Britain.

Dr Ockendon added: "It has been increasingly observed over the last decade or so that the migrants that breed in Britain and winter in Africa are showing really dramatic declines.

"Quite a lot of them are red-listed species and of conservation concern.

"The changes in rainfall in Africa could be leaving the birds less able to cope with growing pressures back here in the UK as well. – when it is a bad year in Africa they can't recover so quickly because their habitat has been degraded.

"There is less slack in the system now."

Severe droughts in Africa during the 1960s were observed to bring short-term reductions in the number of migratory birds arriving in the UK, but this latest research provides evidence that changes in rainfall have have a longer-lasting impact.

Bird experts now fear that as climate change and changing land use in Africa increasingly cause water shortages, numbers of migrating birds will continue to suffer.

A spokesman for the RSPB said: "With summer-visiting birds we are facing a crisis in terms of the sharp rate at which these birds are disappearing.

"The cause behind this is very complicated and difficult to disentangle, but this research suggests the changing water regimes in western central Africa are playing a significant role

"There is growing concern about how the significant variability in land use and water availability in Africa is impacting on summer visitors to the UK and Europe."

Tree Pipit

Archive for the ‘Diary 2010’ Category
Wildlife Diary 6 September 2010
Monday, September 6th, 2010

Good morning all, This is Stephen From The loch of the lowes Visitor centre some of you might have heard about me others not. This is my first post on the blog And its great to see how much people care about our scottish wildlife and how much people like interacting with us on the blog and in the VC.

More exciting news here at LoL as a juvenile pine marten was again seen this morning stuffing its face with peanuts. Hopefully with some luck its here to stay and we MAY be able to start to hold some pine marten evenings up at the VC.

The weather has been very windy up here and there have been some nasty clouds approaching menacingly some of the leaves have started to fall from there trees Autumn is very much HERE…

I hope everyone has a excellent day and get those comments pouring in!

Stephen

Looks like Archer

(movie)

After weeks of sapphire skies, the weather here has changed suddenly, with torrential downpours since Saturday. And it's still at it! The Met report this morning tells us:

"Rain will clear to showers this afternoon."

Where else would clear still mean showers?

My favourite is one from a late summer forecast... when farmers anxiously watch the skies, hoping the fields and crops will be dry enough for harvest. They were told:

"Good drying today, except during showers."

Now we know...

  PRICELESS!

2nd pic from the bottom, saw the windmills...  Ask Jeff how fast those suckers spin during the storms down there and if it is a long long line of them or just a few?  Please?  Thanks!

OK, I'll ask.

  You just weren't looking for the hawks "back in the day"!

I believe your right Janet but what's my excuse for the past 7 years? Oh yeah, FALCONS!