Smoky Mountain Animal Clinic in Seymour treats an entire spectrum of animals, from three-week-old puppies, to wild hawks injured by traps.
     On Tuesday morning residents brought an injured red tailed hawk into the clinic. It had been caught in a coyote trap off of Goose Gap Road.
    Veterinarian Lisa Garren did not hesitate to take the hawk, and plans to take it home to her barn to nurse him back to health.
    “We can’t keep him here at the clinic because of all the other animals,â€� Garren said. “He is really lucky his leg didn’t break in the trap.â€�
    The hawk had landed in the trap, and suffered a laceration on to his left foot. Garren expects she will be able to free the bird in about a week.
    “I’m going to feed him every day and watch him very carefully,â€� she said. “If I let him go too early I won’t be able to catch him and he won’t make it in the wild.â€�
    Garren was also treating a three-week-old bloodhound puppy in the office on Tuesday.
    “He is the runt of the litter and only weighs about two pounds,â€� she said while holding the puppy wrapped snuggly in a blanket. “He’s struggling a little bit, but we’ll try to get him through it.â€�
    The clinic, which has an in-house lab, mainly treats cats and dogs, but Garren also treats horses and Veterinarian Susan Sterling treats llamas, goats, pigs and ferrets on occasion.
     Staff at the clinic perform x-rays, ultrasounds, routine and emergency surgeries, and even acupuncture.
    “Acupuncture is really neat,â€� said Garren. “It is actually pretty common in horses; I have performed it on horses several times.â€�
    According to Garren, acupuncture can be used to treat anything from asthma to joint pain to gastrointestinal problems.
    “It actually works really well, I have had good results with it,â€� she said.
    Sterling is currently taking a course in acupuncture so she can perform it on animals in the clinic.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/1007950/weatherman-jacobs-attacked-by-pelican  This is hysterical....just the guy laughing had me going. Gotta see.

Wildlife Minister Huw Irranca Davies has today accepted a petition signed by more 200,000 people demanding an end to the killing of birds of prey.

The petition is the largest ever collected by the RSPB.

Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB's Director of Conservation, handed the petition to the Minister in front of a giant mosaic of a peregrine, held aloft by supporters of the campaign.

Dr Avery said: "We have been impressed and inspired by the huge response to this campaign. That so many people felt moved to take time to add their names to our call for the killing to stop gives it enormous weight.

"Like us they are rightly appalled that birds of prey continue to be killed in our countryside."

Most birds of prey are recovering in number since the days when they all but vanished because of persecution and poisoning from pesticides like DDT.

As well as legal protection, the birds' recovery has been helped enormously by the efforts of many conservationists, landowners and gamekeepers. Yet, illegal activity remains a very real threat in some parts of the country.

In 2008, the RSPB received more than 200 reports of birds of prey being shot, poisoned and trapped in the UK.

The Society has been calling for a review of the way crimes against wildlife are dealt with by the police and courts in England and Wales. A similar review has already been carried out in Scotland.

Dr Avery said: "While today's hand-in shows how strongly the public feels about the need to protect our birds of prey, there remains a minority who see them as pests to be exterminated.

"I very much welcome the Minister's presence here today; His name is one of those 200,000 and he has made the killing of birds of prey one of the Government's wildlife crime priorities.

"Nevertheless, whoever forms the next Government needs to take positive steps to demonstrate they take these crimes seriously."

Wildlife Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, said: "I'm delighted to support this RSPB campaign and it's great to see that hundreds of thousands of people want to see these marvellous birds protected and have signed this petition.

"Most of our birds of prey populations are doing well but the persecution of birds of prey is one of the priorities dealt with by our Wildlife Crime Unit who work to protect these very special birds."

[2/4/2010 :: Male Peregrine Returns!At 1:25 PM today, February 4, 2010 the Rachel Carson male peregrine was spotted on the southeast corner of the ledge. This ends his long absence from the ledge and renews expectations for another successful nesting season.]

    
Recent News Title
2/4/2010  ::   Male Peregrine- Still No Sighting
This female has been in this situation before. The original male was injured six years ago and could not be returned to the wild. She spent a lot of time away from her usual perches and spent more time at places where he had habitually perched. Then, she was gone from the area for longer periods of time. A little more than six weeks after the original male was injured she pair bonded with the current male. We know that there are many ranging individual peregrines out there looking for nesting territories. These wandering peregrines will opportunistically displace breeding adults.


2/4/2010  ::   Male Peregrine Returns!
At 1:25 PM today, February 4, 2010 the Rachel Carson male peregrine was spotted on the southeast corner of the ledge. This ends his long absence from the ledge and renews expectations for another successful nesting season.   

  I'm glad he's back.  This makes me wonder more about Kaver. Is he out there, is he alive, did he try and come back last year, did A & B chase him out? Unless he tries to come back this year, I'm afraid we'll never know. It's not getting any easier missing Kaver, it's getting worse. Now my concerns are on Mariah, what the heck will happen this season?

Donna go to the movie you took of when the headless pigeon disappeared. There is some kind of tower out there. It's probably some kind of warning light for airplanes.

Oh BC....your the best. yes, I saw the Tower..  Thank you!!! I love when people can debunk my stuff I see on cam. 

It's either aliens or you've been staring at those cams to long 

Yeah yeah 

  again on Jan 27
Jan 26
(movie) just curious...this time it moved

(movie)  Anyone know what that light is? I see it every now and then and it's always the same size and in the same place.

Laplace - There's something fascinating about seeing a tiny hummingbird zipping around your yard. And there are some places in south Louisiana where even on one of the coldest days of the year, the hummingbirds are buzzing.

One Metairie woman is rewriting the book on what is known about the tiny creatures.

"We think of birds as being our birds. But these birds are international travelers," says hummingbird enthusiast Nancy Newfield.

It's one of the coldest days of the year in Laplace. The temperature is near 20 degrees. But for Nancy, this is prime time for observing Louisiana's winter hummingbirds.

"They have not forgotten to migrate. They have come from someplace else to spend their winters with us in Louisiana."

Newfield says that fact contradicts a popular notion that people should pick up hummingbird feeders during the cold months.

"Here in Louisiana we are blessed with having two completely different overlapping seasons and we can have hummingbirds in our gardens 365 days a year."

Newfield is known as "the hummingbird lady". She and fellow hummingbird lovers have work to do. The Laplace home of Stuart Lasseigne is loaded with hummingbirds.

"I'll put 30 feeders up and i'll go through a gallon of sugar water a day. Once you start doing it you really need to keep doing it because the birds kind of depend on you," Lasseigne says.

The two friends set up traps that are baited with sweetened water and it's only a matter of time before a hummingbird is lured inside.

During 3 decades of work, Newfield and her friends have captured and banded 4700 hummingbirds. And that research has rewritten the book on Louisiana's smallest birds.

Back in the 1970's when Nancy Newfield began her study of hummingbirds, only 5 species of the hummers had been seen in Louisiana. Now that number has more than doubled.

"We're finding that we see 8 species every Winter, sometimes 9 or ten. And to me that's just fascinating having grown up believing that there was only one kind of hummingbird in the whole world," says Newfield.

Every bird gets a tiny numbered band around its leg. Up to 20 of the bands fit on a single diaper pin.

Newfield peers beneath feathers, looking for fat and signs of molting. The beaks are measured, along with wings and the tail. The major feathers are counted and the small birds are weighed. All of the data is then recorded. When a banded bird is recaptured, it's file gets updated.

A hummingbird's average lifespan is 3 to 4 years. But Newfield says she has seen some exceed that.

"The longest returning bird i've ever had was a buff bellied right here in the town of Laplace. It returned here for 9 years."

30 years of banding has allowed Newfield to track the migrations of some of her Louisiana birds. A bird she banded in Metairie was spotted in Washington state, 2100 miles away and one she caught in Houma made a 1500 mile trek to Idaho.

"I think it's really neat to have the same birds come back every year because they come from such long distances," Lasseigne says.

Over the last 3 decades, Nancy Newfield and her volunteers have banded almost 5,000 winter hummingbirds in Louisiana.

I think Kaver finally figured out that he was born with henopause.

  it him   Thanks Shaky

So good to see falcon faces (that one is a great face) again 

Reminds me of KAVER 

Their getting ready Aafke. Thanks.

Nest Tree
Posted by Lisa in Blackwater NWR, Eagle Cam, Nesting

two bald eagle eggsWhile we’re patiently waiting for our eaglets to hatch, I thought folks might be interested in learning a bit more about our Eagle Cam tree. The tree that has hosted our camera for six seasons is a loblolly pine tree. Loblolly pines are beautiful, tall trees that are common at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and they’re a favorite of our eagle population.

In Brooke Meanley’s excellent book Blackwater, he writes:

    Though there are some big hardwood trees in southern Dorchester County — oaks, gums, and others — loblolly pines are invariably selected for nest sites. The pines are probably chosen not only because they are the predominant trees and the best life-form for a nest site, but also because pines usually grow closer to the marshes and open water, principal hunting grounds of the eagle.

    Nest are constructed mostly of sticks, with a few clumps of sod, cornstalks (occasionally with ears attached), and if near a marsh, a few cattail stalks. In the Blackwater country, nests are usually lined with marsh grass. As material is added year after year, the core of the nest comes to form a sodden mass of vegetable mold. Sticks up to six feet in length have been noted in eagle nests.

Meanley goes on to describe a Blackwater nest that fell down and noted it contained some odd items, such as acorns and periwinkle snails (neither used for food), furnace clinkers, and muskrat traps.

    Through the years fragments of nonedible food, the bones of muskrats, feet of ducks, heads of fish, skulls of birds, and other items, filter down into the interstices of a nest.

One fallen nest contained the remains of 35 muskrat, 8 waterfowl, several fish, 1 spotted turtle, 1 blue crab, and part of what appeared to be the skull of a red-tailed hawk.

Several years ago, Craig Koppie — an endangered species and raptor specialist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — came to Blackwater NWR to collect a few bald eaglets that were being relocated to Vermont, where they’re trying to establish a breeding population. During his visit, photos were taken of Craig climbing loblolly pine trees where eagle nests with young were located. If you click on the links below, you can see Craig climbing the trees and you can also get an idea of how big an eagle nest is compared to a human male.

And as a final treat, here is a photo of our actual Eagle Cam tree. We happened to find this in our archives not long ago, and we knew our cam watchers would enjoy seeing the actual tree. The nest is bigger now, for sure, but it gives you a good look at the tree location. As a side note: Our camera is about 80 feet up in the air, which gives you an idea why we have to use a professional tree climber in order to do cam maintenance.

Weather

We hear that more snow is headed our way this weekend — it’s been one tough winter — so we hope our parents will continue doing their excellent job in keeping the eggs safe. And be sure to check in on the Norfolk Eagle Cam in Virginia, where their couple is also protecting two eggs at the moment.

Thanks to all those who have sent in photos. We’ll get the gallery updated this weekend.

[Wilmington adult attacking peephole.]

By the end of the month, Delaware residents and the rest of the world will be able to log on to to the Delmarva Ornithological Society's Web site, click on a link and see what's up with Wilmington's pair of peregrine falcons.

The society and DuPont Co.'s Clear into the Future Program partnered to install a real-time camera in the peregrine nesting box on the Brandywine Building in downtown Wilmington. In addition, the company provided money for six months of web hosting for a total package of $6,000.

The site will launch Feb. 22.

"Eventually, we hope to have a network of raptor cams," said Timothy Ireland, with DuPont's Clear into the Future program. "You'll be able to see the mating behavior. ... You'll really get insight into these magnificent birds."

But here's a warning from Bill Stewart, the ornithological society's conservation chair: "This is real life, and some of it may not be for the faint of heart."

So how bad can it be, you wonder. After all, these are birds.

Stewart relates this story about efforts to band the four chicks in last year's nest.

Stewart said he wanted to tape the process, and held his camera up to a peep hole on the backside of the nesting box.

All of a sudden, he said, it got very noisy as one adult squawked a warning that sounded like a car alarm. The next thing Stewart knew, one of the birds attacked the video camera.

Peregrines are one of nature's fastest birds of prey, and they easily can take down a pigeon.

So besides the courtship rituals, people also may see them feeding on their kill, laying eggs, rearing young and, by sometime in July, teaching the young to survive on their own.

The camera will be on 24-7, Stewart said. And because there is ambient light, it may be possible to see what they are doing even after hours, he said.

Last year, none of the four birds survived.

"Nobody knows why," Ireland said.

The webcam, besides increasing awareness about the birds, may also give scientists insights into the behaviors and allow them to see when things go wrong.

"We'll have a better sense of why it happens," Ireland said.

"We really want to bring a strong awareness that this type of bird calls Wilmington home," Stewart said.

Peregrines, like many other birds of prey, suffered significant population declines because of egg shell thinning caused by exposure to the pesticide DDT. But as the population has recovered, the birds have discovered urban settings like Wilmington.

"Here we are in Wilmington, and these birds of prey ... are really treating our buildings as cliff sides," Ireland said.

The birds have been in Wilmington for years. In 2002, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service installed the nesting box on the side of the Brandywine Building to provide a protected habitat.

Then, in 2008, Clear into the Future and the ornithological society teamed up to host evening events so people could watch and learn about the birds.

With the webcam, people can watch as the birds incubate and rear their young, Stewart said.

"People are going to get really excited when there are eggs and when the first one hatches," he said.

Stewart said organizers plan to launch the site, which will be up and running sometime this week, at a reception at the Wilmington Public Library on Feb. 25. The event is free and open to the public.

Photographs of the birds, taken by Kim Steiniger, will be on display. A U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist plans to bring a live peregrine falcon

And once the camera goes live, Stewart said, "You can just sit there and watch."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0t_--17lkg

Wilmington adult attacking peephole.

This winter will be a hard one for the whooping crane, one of the most endangered species in the world. The last remaining natural flock of the rare birds took a devastating loss last year at its wintering grounds at the Aransas Natural Wildlife Refuge. The flock lost 23 birds, a heavy blow to a species that only counts an estimated 263.

This November-to-March wintering season is expected to be just as hard on the big birds. At about 5 feet, they are the tallest in North America.

The immediate cause of last winter’s die-off was the scarcity of blue crabs, the chief source of food for the birds during their time along the Gulf Coast. But some environmentalists believe the real cause is far upstream from the coastal marshes where the birds winter.

In December, a coalition of environmentalists filed paperwork in preparation to suing the state, alleging that regulators have allowed too much water to be taken out of the Guadalupe-Blanco river watershed, to the detriment of the cranes. Developers of subdivisions, industry operators and agricultural interests far from the Gulf Coast — the Guadalupe-Blanco watershed includes parts of the Hill Country may not think of their own water needs as competing with the water demands of whooping cranes. But the survival of the species is connected with the health of the river.

In Texas, where the demand for water is ever increasing from growing cities and suburbs, guarding the downstream flow of rivers is often a thankless task. Even though the Legislature has mandated that river authorities set aside freshwater flows for wildlife needs, to much of the public, water that is allowed to be released from upstream reservoirs is “wasted.� Even in Corpus Christi, whose tourist industry depends heavily on a healthy coastal environment, the release of freshwater from the city’s reservoir at Choke Canyon is still disputed in some quarters. But the necessity of protecting downstream flows is becoming ever clearer as underlined by the stress being placed on the last surviving members of a magnificent species.

Which is not to say that the allegations in the suit will be easy to prove. The scarcity of blue crabs came after one of the hardest droughts in South Texas history. The drought placed stress on every species in the region. And the blue crabs, which help the birds restore their strength from the long migration from Canada, still haven’t come back in the numbers necessary to feed the birds. Some of the big birds already have begun foraging outside the refuge boundaries, using up more of their energy just in finding enough food. Refuge officials have plans to put out food, the same kind that cranes in zoos are fed. But that may not be the answer for a flock that naturally feeds on the rich food of blue crabs.

Defendants in any lawsuit can well point out that the whooping cranes, despite being few in number, have actually increased since their low point in 1941 when only a handful existed. But the species is still in a precarious position. “I feel that we’re probably going to have a die-off,� Allan Strand, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in South Texas, said last week. “It’s conceivable that we could have a significant die-off.�

The species has been hit hard by a drought, a natural occurrence in South Texas. But the big birds’ situation shouldn’t be made worse by being squeezed out of their share of freshwater river flows, if the evidence says that is happening.