The bird-watchers suspected there were new eaglets in the neighborhood, but they knew for sure when two tiny, fluffy heads appeared.

The pair of bald eagles nesting at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum have hatched two chicks, officials confirmed Tuesday.

It's a history-making moment for the refuge, the nation's most urban, not to mention another chapter in a Philadelphia eagles drama that has riveted area birders and conservationists.

Eagles' nests are in all seven of the region's suburban counties, and the urban eagles have been touted as even more dramatic proof of the species' comeback.

In 2007, a pair of eagles were discovered nesting in the Navy Yard - the first in the city in two centuries. Their nest failed then, but the next year one eaglet survived.

By 2009, they were gone - perhaps, like generations of suburbanites, to New Jersey, officials figured.

But by then the city was seeing eagle action aplenty elsewhere. Another pair built a nest near the Pennypack Creek in the Northeast, and two young survived.

Yet another nest was under construction that year at the Heinz refuge in Tinicum, but those eagles were like bumbling newlyweds, producing a clumsy, rickety nest. And there were no eggs.

This year, both pairs returned, one to Pennypack, the other to Tinicum, and laid eggs.

By Tuesday, Frank Windfelder, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Society president who made daily checks of the Pennypack nest, suspected it had failed. The eggs were way past due to hatch.

He and Doug Gross, endangered-bird specialist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, figured the late snow was likely to blame.

Overall, eagles in both states have been nesting and breeding champs. Going from just a few nests in the 1980s, Pennsylvania had 174 nesting pairs last year and New Jersey 84.

Once headed for extinction, the bald eagle is regarded as one of the nation's great wildlife conservation stories.

Gross said the eagles' story was also one of environmental success. Eagles eat fish, so their presence here "speaks volumes about the recovery of the Delaware River" and other local waterways, he said.

While the locations of many nests are kept secret, the refuge in Tinicum has touted its eagles because they are on an island - close enough to see with binoculars but inaccessible enough to guard against people disturbing them.

Still, the birds can hardly escape the rush of traffic on nearby highways and the roar of jet engines at the airport. Nearby are an oil refinery and a Superfund site.

Refuge manager Gary Stolz said the eaglets were active. He has seen them stretching their tiny wings. Better yet, they're helping out.

The refuge has had an ongoing problem with carp, an invasive fish that has turned out to be an eaglet delicacy.

"Besides being the gorgeous, magnificent birds that they are," Stolz said, "they're helping us remove problem fish and restore native species."

[Diving with Giants]

Diving with Giants

These incredible pictures shows the gentleness of giant sperm whales as they play near the surface.

Taken in Dominica in the Caribbean, the pod even allows snorkellers to touch and interact with them.

Hunted for their oil and demonised as savage brutes in fiction such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick, these pictures show a gentler side to one of the planet's largest mammals.

They were taken by Dr Peter G Allinson, from Florida, who specialises in Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine who travels to Dominica on a regular basis to highlight these magnificent creatures.

Dr Allinson, 61, said: 'When they interact with us they approach us very closely, rolling over again and again, trying to get us to rub their abdomens and bodies. 

'When you start getting close to them you feel nervous, intimidated and then as they interact with you pleasure - you realise they are intelligent.'

Dr Allinson said that although there are about 150 off the coast of Dominica, they are hard to find.  Boats use sonar and spout sightings to locate them, but it is quite rare to find them in a relaxed and playful mood.

They only use snorkels when they swim with them, as the air bubbles from scuba tanks disturbs them.

He added: 'Generally I spend four days to a week trying to photograph the whales.

There are about 150 whales living offshore of Dominica, but they are not always there or easy to find.

'Most of the boats we have used utilise a hydrophone to locate the general area they are in and visual sightings of their spouts to pinpoint their location.

'The whales come to the surface to breathe and socialize. They stay on the surface anywhere from about 15 minutes to over an hour.

'They are truly beautiful creatures and I photograph them in the hopes of helping to save the whales. 

'The more people who understand these wonderful animals the better.'

Sperm whales have the largest brain of any animal, are the largest toothed animal and the largest living predator

Diving to depths of three kilometres to feed on giant and colossal squid also makes them the deepest diving mammal.

The clicking sound they make is also the loudest sound made by any animal.

Male whales can grow up to 20.5 metres or 67 feet long and can weigh up to 57,000 kilos.

The species was named after the oily white spermeceti found in its head and used in candles, cosmetics, soap and machine oils.

From the mid 18th century until last century the whale was also hunted for its oil used in specialized lubricants, lamp oil, pencils, crayons, leather waterproofing, rust-proofing materials and many pharmaceutical compounds.

Ambergris, a waxy substance found in the whale's stomach was also used as a fixative in perfumes.

Due to hunting the species is listed as vulnerable but has also gone down in folklore.

In 1820 an American whaling ship, the Essex, was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale, which inspired Herman Melville to pen the classic tale Moby Dick.

It is believed that there were more than a million sperm whales when hunting began and today with a ban their numbers are back in the hundreds of thousands.

[Sea spray leaves house blanketed in thick layer of gunk]

Sea spray leaves house blanketed in thick layer of gunk


The amazing scene in Perranporth, Cornwall, was caught on camera by Gordon Blanks, 77, on Wednesday.

He said: 'The wind was very strong and I could just about stand up. It is the first time in 15 years I have seen the foam as bad as this.

'Perranporth was deserted as I think all the sensible people had stayed inside.'

The foam is thought to be the result of strong winds blowing in one direction and whipping the sea up into a froth.

Sea spray whipped up by high winds was believed to have created the foam that blanketed the beach and sea front

Local restaurant manager Freyja Munding said she had only seen foam as thick as this once in her lifetime.
She said: "When the chef arrived in the morning he told me to go outside and have a look.

'Our bins and signs had been blown down the road and the pub car park was covered in foam too - it was very weird.'

Craig Baldwin, a lecturer at Falmouth Marine School, said the foam is created by organic materials in the sea's eco-system.

Scientists have discovered how huge flocks of birds decide when to change direction in mid flight... they use a kind of 'democratic hierarchy.'

The team from Britain and Hungary strapped tiny global position systems (GPS) to pigeons to work out how they operated as a well-ordered group rather than chaotic individuals.

The researchers recorded the flight paths of individual birds and then analysed interactions between them.
They found that pigeon flocks use a flexible system of leadership where almost every member plays a part, but high-ranking birds have more power.

The findings, published in the journal Nature yesterday, could help unravel the collective behaviour and decision-making processes of other groups of animals, including humans.
To conduct their study, the researchers fitted miniature GPS loggers weighing less than one ounce into custom-made backpacks carried by flocks of up to 10 homing pigeons.

The devices allowed scientists to analyse spatial and temporal relationships between birds and the movement decisions they made at the scale of a fraction of a second.

'These hierarchies are flexible in the sense that the leading role of any given bird can vary over time,' said Biro.

'This dynamic, flexible segregation of individuals into leaders and followers - where even the lower-ranking members' opinions can make a contribution - may represent a particularly efficient form of decision-making.'

The scientists said more studies could help explain how such a sophisticated leadership system is able to give evolutionary advantage to individuals, compared with strategy based on a single leader or one where all members play an equal part.

[Infected garden feeders and bird baths blamed for deaths of one fifth of Britain's Greenfinches]

Infected garden feeders and bird baths blamed for deaths of one fifth of Britain's Greenfinches


For millions of cold and hungry birds, feeders hanging in gardens are a lifeline during the hard days of winter.

But some wildlife experts are warning that they can also be a deathtrap.

They say dirty feeders and infected bird baths are spreading a disease that has killed a fifth of Britain's greenfinches in recent years.

They are urging nature lovers to clean up their bird tables, and temporarily stop feeding birds if they are signs of infection in their garden.

Around 20 million people in Britain regularly leave out food for birds.

They spend £250million a year on specialist seeds and the figure is rising.

Charities and conservation groups say garden feeders are an essential resource for birds, especially during the winter.

But a conference in London next month will hear evidence that they have contributed to the spread of at least two diseases in last decade.

In Britain, around one in five greenfinches has been killed by the disease Trichomoniasis, or 'trich', since 2005.

The disease makes their throats swell, causing them to starve, New Scientist reports today.

In 2007, around 500,000 greenfinches were killed by trich according to the British Trust for Ornithology.

Other types of finches, pigeons and house sparrows are also susceptible.

The disease is caused by a parasite-that lives in the upper digestive-tract of birds and is spread when they feed each other, and when they visit tables and feeders contaminated by infected birds.

Birds with the condition have fluffed up plumage, are lethargic and may drool saliva.

In the U.S., dirty bird feeders are fuelling an epidemic of an infectious eye disease called mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, the conference will hear.

It has wiped out around 60 per cent of house finches in the eastern U.S.

Bird feeders can also be a source of salmonella and E-coli.

Dr Jim Reynolds, an ornithologist at the University of Birmingham, said little was known about the impact of bird feeders on wild populations.

'We should have a huge amount of data, but we don't,' he said.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said feeders saved the lives of countless birds and should not be scrapped.

But Nik Shelton of the RSPB said: 'It's important that feeders and bird baths are hygienic to stop the spread of disease.'

'Bird tables should be cleared of food and scrubbed with weak bleach and water once a fortnight. Water containers should be washed out, and feeders should be washed.'

If greenfinches are showing signs of disease, people should stop feeding birds for a couple of weeks.

And leaving at 5.32

and nothing here   

Beauty still there @ 11:06 pm

Beauty still there..but...what else is new? 

Sometimes, even wildlife refuges aren’t safe from disaster.

A pipeline spilled 18,000 gallons of crude oil into a canal that passes through the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, located approximately 60 miles southeast of New Orleans. This refuge spans across almost 49,000 acres of marsh and is an important home for local and migratory birds. It’s also home to several endangered species, including the American Alligator, Brown Pelican, and Arctic Peregrine Falcon.

The pipeline belongs to Chevron Pipe Line Co. and thus far they have closed off the leaking section. Investigations are currently being conducted and the cause of the spill is still unknown.

Updates will be posted as they happen.

For the second consecutive year, a female peregrine falcon has laid eggs in a nesting box in the tower of MacKay Heating Plant on the east side of the South Campus.

And this year, anyone with access to the Web can watch those eggs hatch, and if all goes well, the chicks grow and mature in the nest.

Staff members from UB Facilities, with assistance from and in consultation with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Buffalo Audubon Society, installed a new Web cam in the nest the week of March 22—while the rare birds were present but before the breeding season began, says Al Gilewicz, assistant director, Utility Operations.

The UB “falcon-cam� is particularly important, members of the local bird-watching community say, because the Audubon society camera that had been observing the peregrine falcons in residence in the Statler Tower in downtown Buffalo went dark when the building was mothballed.

Local birdwatchers are certain the female peregrine at UB is BB, the same female who laid the eggs in MacKay tower last spring. But Smokey, last year’s male, has been replaced by Yankee, a bird from the Niagara Gorge nest.

Gilewicz says Smokey did return to the UB nest recently and fought with BB and Yankee—with the altercation captured by the camera. Smokey was driven off, but not before one of the three eggs in the nest was broken. A short time later, though, the camera documented that BB laid another egg, bringing the total back to three.

Gilewicz praises the work of UB IT staff, in particular Jeff Klein and Joe Mantione, in getting the Web cam to operate. “The technical people really made it come alive,� he adds.

Last spring, UB Facilities staff, working with local officials from the DEC and the Buffalo Audubon Society, built the nesting box and received permission from the state Office of Historic Preservation—the MacKay tower is a state historic landmark—to install the box near the top of the tower.

Four chicks were hatched in May and biologists from the DEC banded them in order to identify and monitor them for the rest of their lives. While biologists say chicks are unlikely to return once they leave their nest, their parents frequently return to the same nest to raise another brood.

I was checking courtships to egg laying, and 20 days is average.  Because Archer arrived later,  maybe we are eggspecting too much.  20 days will be April 10. 

~Joyce

Yup...like I said before...M&K were an average of 22.57 days...

Janet may have an egg for her Birthday!

Seneca's baby pic. Banding day.

Fog building again

Looks like Quest is definitely on a mission again. She be liking that Lobster. The first pic is the smaller version of the map, then zoomed. White Mountain National Forest. She's not a settler yet.

[rochfalconflyer]

rochfalconflyer (aka Lisa McK) mentioned that she might take a detour to Ogdensburg when she drives up to her son's college which is not to far away.  

It would be great to get a first hand report of VALIANT (formerly Sabrina).

Go Lisa!! Yay...would love to see him. (formerly her)