Somebody zips by my window, I hear a bunch of chatter from upstairs and check the cam: sure enough, lunchtime!

You have an advantage Mark...you can hear them coming...LOL   Great capture! 

!!! Lots of nest box activity, but no eggs as yet.
March 29, 2010 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
CPF Postmaster Reports:

While the adult peregrines have been very active in the nest box this past week, it might appear that the territorial squabbling going on between two adult females on site has delayed pair bonding and courtship activities with the male. We’re not quite sure who is on territory at this momment, but it appears that the territorial dispute has finally yeilded a victor, as evident by yesterdays observations. There are only two adults on site now, (one adult male and one adult female). Hopefully, the pair (who ever they are), can now get down to some pair bonding and serious courtship activities.

[ARCHIVES->Video Archive]

I don't post often, but I check in alot and during the busy season I use your site all the time and the dailies, well...almost daily!  I really appreciate all you do.  It really enhances the experience. Thanks!

The poll results are in favor of keeping the dailies. I have moved them to the Rfalconcam site. You can find them under the ARCHIVES->Video Archive tab on the top menu.

Thanks Shaky, I love the main cam Dailie.  Looks like they are dancing.  bguitar

Archer's arrival
Egg teasers.

Years from now, historians will point out that the A&B Dynasty started with two Chinese rulers.

  good one

She's back

Near a small pond on Renton's western edge, nests of great blue herons, perched up to 100 feet high in a stand of cottonwood trees, appear safe from any danger from below.

But not from above.

With increasing frequency, this heron colony and others throughout Western Washington are being attacked by bald eagles. It's gotten to the point that Suzanne Krom, founder of a group called Herons Forever, said eagles are treating heron nesting grounds as "all-you-can-eat, fast-food delis."

Bald eagles, roaring back from the brink of extinction, are now almost commonplace even in urban areas, searching for food in a shrinking habitat.

Their attacks against herons link two species, each of which has an emotional significance for humans: Bald eagles are proud, fierce symbols of the country. Great blue herons, named official bird of Seattle in 2003, have what bird-watcher Danny O'Keefe calls "a certain kind of meditative grace."

Particularly during the breeding season, now under way, heron watchers report seeing eagles chasing herons off their nests, then preying on the eggs and hatchlings left behind.

"They'll eat the young right there on the nest, or carry one off," said Pam Cahn, a volunteer with Heron Habitat Helpers, which monitors and helps maintain a nesting ground in Seattle's Kiwanis Ravine near Discovery Park.

Eagles also will sometimes attack an adult heron. O'Keefe saw an eagle with an adult heron in its talons near his Vashon Island home. "The eagle took it down to the ground and finished it off," he said.

At Renton's 93-acre Black River Riparian Forest and Wetland, Krom said, eagle attacks have contributed to a drastic drop in the number of young herons produced, from more than 360 in 2004 to between 35 to 50 last year.

"Herons have thin legs and sleek bodies. They're built for wading in shallow water and grabbing small marine animals," Krom said. "Eagles have big, hooded bills and enormous talons with tremendous strength. They're built for ripping and shredding. Herons have no chance against an eagle."

Wildlife officials say it's not clear what the attacks' long-term implications are for the region's heron population, but acknowledge the eagle's recovery has put increased pressure on herons.

"Historically, between these two species there was some balance, and there's probably a balancing act that will be taking place over the next several years," said Jim Watson, raptor research scientist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "But obviously, in the short term, it might not be a very pretty picture."

A 1972 ban on the pesticide DDT is frequently cited as the major factor in the bald eagle's resurgence.

The number of occupied bald-eagle nests observed in Washington grew from 105 in 1980 to 845 in 2005, the last year a count was taken, Watson said. The bird's recovery has been so robust that in 2007 it was taken off the endangered-species list, although both it and the heron are protected by other laws, regulations and international agreements.

Herons are year-round residents of the Puget Sound area, easiest to view during the spring-summer nesting season.

The Renton colony has been harassed for the past half-dozen years by a pair of eagles that heron-watchers have dubbed Bonnie and Clyde. Despite the gangster names, Krom insists that Bonnie and Clyde aren't the real villains in this drama.

"It's not the eagle's fault that they're in this situation," she said. "We're the ones that have developed so much of their original habitat. The eagles moved in, Krom said, only after the hillside forest where they previously nested was cut down for an apartment complex.

Ross Vennesland, a British Columbia biologist who has studied herons since the 1990s, said bird counts indicate the population of Pacific great blue herons is in a slow decline, and fewer than 10,000 remain around the "Salish Sea," a name applied to the inland waterways of Washington and B.C.

For reasons that aren't clear, Vennesland said, the average number of surviving young herons produced per nest each year has dropped from about two in the 1980s to about one now — a level that might be near the minimum needed to sustain the species.

It's not clear how much of the herons' decline is caused by eagles, just as it is impossible to know the comparative numbers the two birds might have had many decades ago, before DDT reduced the population of eagles.

"These two species have been interacting together since the ice left," Vennesland said. "But right now the eagles are having an impact on herons and that is worrisome, given that they (herons) have a vulnerable population."

If heron populations decline further, creative intervention efforts to be considered could include introducing osprey nests near heron colonies. Eagles, Vennesland said, avoid osprey, which are primarily fish eaters and are unlikely to bother the heron.

The fate of herons has implications beyond their own species. A 2007 report for the Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership, by biologist Ann Eissinger, called herons a "sentinel for nearshore function and health."

Another biologist, Kate Stenberg, of Sammamish, said it's possible eagles are preying on herons partly because other traditional sources of food, such as waterfowl in wetlands and fish in area streams, are less abundant than they used to be.

"We need to think about what's going on in the bigger environment. We need to think about having adequate habitat and food resources for the eagle," Stenberg said.

To those who've come to appreciate having herons close by, the eagle attacks are disheartening.

Mike Hamilton of Herons Forever has photographed the birds in the Black River Riparian Forest for eight years, and seen numerous eagle attacks.

"Intellectually I know it may be just part of nature," he said. "But there's an attachment you feel to the herons, watching their lives, taking pictures of their chicks. And when you see one carried off, you can't help but have feelings of dismay, even disgust. If I could, I would fly up there and chase the eagle away."

Thanks Kris & Carly!  I don't know why I didn't remember that...I remembered all about 2-timing Windwhistler, but not that Tiago was his son...hope he doesn't take up that habit too!

Jack in Canada is a two-timer also. How do they keep up?

After all that time...is she leaving? Yup   

Beauty....you need to go in here! Hello.....eggs?

Still there

Eggs!  We want Eggs!

She's staying close to the nest.....and EARLY too. Ya never know!

A white throated hummingbird (Luecochloris albicollis) feeds on the nectar of a Bromelia flower in a flowerbed in the Santa Lucia Nature Reserve, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The reserve is a 400 Hectare natural area that is managed by the Nature Reserve of the Museu de Biologia Mello Leitao.

National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported researcher Dr. Erich Jarvis of Duke University is studying hummingbirds and their vocal structures. In 2002, Jarvis was awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award, NSF's highest honor for researchers under the age of 35. [See related images, Rufous-Breasted Hermit Hummingbird and Swallow-Tailed Hummingbird.]

More about this Image Hummingbirds have developed a wealth of intriguing features, such as backwards flight, ultraviolet vision, extremely high metabolic rates, nocturnal hibernation, high brain-to-body size ratio, and a remarkable species-specific diversity of vocalizations. Like humans, they have also developed the rare trait of vocal learning, the ability to acquire vocalizations through imitation rather than instinct.

Vocal learning is a very rare trait. It is known to be present in only 6 groups of animals--3 groups of birds (parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds) and 3 groups of mammals (bats, cetaceans [whales/dolphins], and humans). All other groups of animals are thought to produce genetically innate vocalizations. To understand this concept, it is important to distinguish vocal learning from auditory learning. Auditory learning is the ability to make sound associations, such as a dog learning how to respond to the sound "sit." All vertebrates have auditory learning. Vocal learning is the ability to imitate sounds that you hear, such as a human or a parrot imitating the sound "sit." Currently only vocal learners have been found to have forebrain regions dedicated to vocal learning and production of these learned vocalizations. Vocal non-learners only have been found to have non-forebrain vocal regions responsible for the production of innate vocalizations.

Dr. Erich Jarvis of Duke University is studying hummingbirds and their vocal structures. Hummingbirds are a particularly good model to study because they have the ability to imitate sounds and pass them down through generations. The objective of this project is to determine how the vocal learning behavioral trait and associated brain structures evolved.

We utilize vocalizing-driven gene expression to identify vocal brain structures in vocal learning and vocal non-learning species. To date, we have used this approach in 3 vocal learners - songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. We have found that they each contain 7 very similar brain structures. If according to the current dominant hypothesis, vocal learning evolved independently in all 6 vocal learning groups within the past 65 million years, then the striking similarities in brain structures of at least the 3 avian groups suggest that there a strong epigenetic constraints on how vocal learning can evolve. We are now determining if this hypothesis is correct, or if there really was a common ancestor with vocal learning, and other groups lost them through evolution

Early morning visit. A or B Arrived at 5:47

Published Date: 29 March 2010
A PAIR of peregrine falcons that breed annually are to be put under 24-hour surveillance from today to protect them from egg thieves.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust will carry out a round-the-clock stake-out of the birds' nest site at the Falls of Clyde Wildlife Reserve in New Lanark for the next three months. 

Despite being a legally protected species, peregrines are at risk from thieves who can sell falcon eggs to collectors, and from those who take young chicks to train for falconry.

CCTV will stream live images from the eyrie to the internet and a big screen at the Falls of Clyde Visitor Centre.

Becky Priestley, peregrine protection officer for the SWT, said: "Wildlife crime of this nature really jeopardises the future of a remarkable species – it's unacceptable, illegal and must be stopped."

Only about 1,400 pairs of peregrines remain in the UK due to the effects of the pesticide DDT in the 1950s. About two-thirds of these nest in Scotland.