1st hatch for BW Osprey 

Warrior   
 double cute
Seneca feeding Warrior.

Yummy 

Full crops! 

Finally
crops are empty

It's not a save place for first fledges, but last year all four made it.  Keep fingers crossed

Water St kinda reminds me of Frodo cam...with the water right there and traffic..buildings were the main culprits at Frodo.

Darn!

We tried...but at least they came in the top 3. They held a steady 3rd the whole time. Cool vids.

I really don't think they ate yet....where is Archer???

[As in, I'm gonna wash that pooh right out of my hair?]

Just a wee bit wet. Not sure if they had breakfast yet.

I'm hoping it'll wash the poo off her tail...and head...and wings...

As in, I'm gonna wash that pooh right out of my hair?

 

Red Deer’s highest and tiniest nursery has become one hot commodity for a couple of female birds.

The Telus tower in Highland Green is home to a popular Internet webcam on a pair of peregrine falcons and their five yet-to-be-hatched eggs. But earlier this year, when no one was watching, the telecommunications perch was site of a real catfight, or in this case, bird fight.

A female peregrine falcon dubbed Georgeanne returned to nest on top of the tower this spring. Another female, called Perry, was interested too.

Judy Boyd, spokeswoman of the Red Deer River Naturalists, said Georgeanne was a smaller, older bird that had been banded with metal rings around its two legs in the 1990s.

She was born along the Red Deer River, banded in Red Deer and recorded by Fish and Wildlife as the breeder at the Telus tower last year.

“When she went to go back into the tower, she and Perry had a fight,� Boyd said.

Georgeanne ended up on the ground with one wing twisted up. Perry won the nest, and Windsong the male peregrine falcon.

Boyd’s husband Larry, who helps provide first aid assistance for the Medicine River Wildlife Centre, was called out. With the help of some bystanders at Bower Ponds, he caught her.

The bird didn’t have anything broken, but its wing was injured enough that it couldn’t fly.

Gordon Court, a biologist with Fish and Wildlife in Edmonton, picked up Georgeanne at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre where she was recovering. He has since given her to a falconer to help Georgeanne get her strength back to fly.

Court brought Georgeanne on Friday during a talk on peregrine falcons at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre.

“As soon as she has enough strength in her wings she will be released in the wild again,� Boyd said.

Countless people have been watching real-time video of the Telus tower’s parents to be. It can be found through www.reddeeradvocate.com and www.rdrn.fanweb.ca

“We’ve got so many people following the webcam that this is just another facet of the story,� Boyd said.

The eggs are expected to hatch soon on top of the 111-metre-high tower.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, another pair of peregrine falcons has returned to the top of the Capri Hotel and Convention Centre. No word yet as to how many eggs they have.

  Gordon Court, a provincial wildlife status biologist with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development straightens out the tail feather on this peregrine falcon who was the previous tenant of the Telus tower nest box.

 If the things the humans were doing at the five-story office building under construction in North Lexington had gone well, there wouldn't have been an opening for the owls.

But there were unpaid bills, numerous lawsuits, delays and a bankruptcy at the troubled Lexhold International Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research campus.

Only one of what was supposed to be twin buildings near Interstates 75/64 and Newtown Pike ever materialized, and it was unfinished earlier this spring when an increasingly rare mating pair of barn owls happened by

An architectural feature called an "eyebrow" that runs across the top of the glass wall on one side of the building had not been closed up.

The owls flew in, coughed up a cushioning layer of pellets (mostly mouse fur and bones) and laid four eggs.

Now work on the eyebrow has stopped.

And every night, about 9:30, one or both adult owls appears at the edge of the opening and sets out for Coldstream's many open fields for a night of hunting mice and voles to feed four growing chicks.

"Construction was at a pause so they just thought it was a nice, protected place where they could nest next to their favorite habitat," said Kate Heyden, an avian biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources who was in the parking lot waiting for an owl appearance one night last week.

Work on the exterior of the building was 98 percent complete about six weeks ago when construction worker David Jamison got on a lift and rose 80 feet in the air to finish the eyebrow. He was startled when a large bird flew out.

"It flew right over his head," said Bill Borregard, the construction manager. "I guess they're pretty docile, but it make his heart leap."

Borregard went up a little later, stuck a camera into the opening and snapped a photo. He contacted a raptor rehabilitation center in Louisville, which put him in touch with Heyden.

"As good citizens, we approached the Fish and Wildlife people and Kate said we needed to delay construction," said Bill Bishop, the court-appointed receiver who is overseeing construction and leasing of the building for a bank that now is its owner.

Heyden pointed out that there was no choice in the matter; barn owls are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

She also said she is delighted the construction workers and Bishop have been so cooperative.

There's even an agreement to put an artificial nest — an owl box — on top of the eyebrow after the chicks have flown from the current nest. That's expected to be around the end of June.

Barn owls often return to the same spot to nest again, Heyden said.

State wildlife officials have put up a number of such boxes in wildlife management areas and on private property around the state, she said. That's because barn owls need all the help they can get.

"Most of the U.S. is concerned about barn owls right now, and Kentucky is really concerned," Heyden said. "We only know of 10 other nests in the state besides this one."

There surely are nests that have gone undetected, she said. But barn owls like to nest in cavities, and the old trees with hollow spaces that they prefer, and the hay barns and other old buildings that make quite suitable substitutes are increasingly scarce.

"A big hollow tree surrounded by open pasture is really what a barn owl likes, and that's really hard to come by with the clean farming practices we have nowadays," she said.

Barn owls don't mind nesting in buildings near people, and that also gets them into trouble.

The North Lexington owls are so high up that they don't seem to be bothering anyone, and no one is bothering them.

The office building has about 500 tenants now, Bishop said. The latest to arrive are 300 people from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who are overseeing the response to recent flooding in the state. Many of them are working in unfinished office space, and probably aren't aware of the nature story unfolding outside.

As they stood in the parking lot below the eyebrow, waiting for it to get dark enough for an adult owl to appear, Bishop and Heyden talked about the possibility putting a Web cam in the new nesting box so that anyone with a computer could watch future chicks eat and grow.

"They're really pretty easy to live with," Heyden said. "They're quiet. They eat your mice. They only come out at night so most folks don't even notice them."

Just a wee bit wet. Not sure if they had breakfast yet.

[Sorry for the delay...but hope you had a good day!]

Sorry for the delay...but hope you had a good day!

Pictures of Milton, with some of Jack and Mom.  I think Milton is a little cutie

http://www.asic.ca/peregrinefalcons/

I'm with you jeanne, he sure is.