[Aafke, do the snow pictures have to be from this year?Dot in PA]

Aafke, do the snow pictures have to be from this year?

Dot in PA

and can they be someone elses pics?  Like if you find a great pic on the internet, can we use that? 

    
Recent News Title
1/27/2010  ::   Adult Male Sightings
Typically this pair of peregrines can be found spending much of their time together this time of year. The female has been seen frequently at the ledge, the male has not been spotted for some time. This male does tend to wander for long periods of time and possibly at great distances. If he is not with this female the first week in February we can speculate that something may have happened to him. In any case, web cam viewers are urged to email via the Contact DEP link to report peregrine sightings at the ledge. The male is one third smaller than the female and has been known to perch on top of one of the camera housings to the left of the orange column on the wide camera view of the ledge.

DAVIS, Calif. --


A young red-tailed hawk that was rescued from a car grille will be released into the wild Wednesday.

The driver, whose vehicle struck the bird in rural Yolo County, rushed to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on Jan. 6 with the hawk still stuck in the car's grille, according to spokeswoman Lynn Narlesky.

Veterinarians said the hawk's head and talons were caught in the grille, and they used a screwdriver on a pocket tool to remove the grille off the vehicle to save the bird.

"A thorough exam found no bones had been broken during the hawk's accident, and its neurological function was good. The hawk did suffer a chest injury, which surgeons repaired the next day," according to a news release from UC Davis.

The hawk has been OK to fly for several days, but veterinarians have held off on releasing the birds because of stormy weather.

WAYNESBORO -- A bald eagle likely was struck by an airplane near Newport News-Williamsburg Airport.

It's being treated at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, the organization that's caring for an eagle from Norfolk Botanical Garden that had Avian Pox.

"On January 20, we received a call that a Bald Eagle may have been hit near the airport. The next day, airport authorities indicated no eagle had been found," said Randy Huwa with the Wildlife Center of Virginia.

On Tuesday, however, airport officials contacted the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries about an injured bald eagle, said Huwa.

DGIF Conservation Police Officer George Wilson coordinated the recovery effort for the injured eagle.

The injured bird was located Tuesday and transported to the Animal Clinic and Wellness Center in Williamsburg, where it was examined and stabilized.

After being secured in a figure-eight bandage, the eagle was transported to the Waynesboro center Wednesday by DGIF biologist Susan Watson.

The eagle, believed to be a 7-8-year-old male, has an open fracture of a bone in its left wing.

"The greatest threat at this point is the risk of infection," Huwa stated.

Radiographs also raised concerns about a lung infection, so the eagle is receiving two different antibiotics and pain medications.

He'll be closely monitored over the next few days.

This is the fourth bald eagle admitted to the Waynesboro center so far this year.

According to the Web site birdstrike.org, 110 bald eagles have been struck by aircraft in the U.S. since 1990.

Stats compiled by the FAA show that 4 eagles have been struck by aircraft in Virinia since 2002. That includes previous male mate of the resident female at Norfolk Botanical Garden. At the time, those eagles nested at Norfolk International Airport.

DGIF biologist Stephen Living says eagles are less likely to be struck by aircraft than other types of birds such as gulls, which can gather in huge flocks urban areas.

Living says it's not possible to know if the injured eagle was a Peninsula resident or a transient eagle.

There is no known nest in the immediate vicinity of the airport, although there a number on the Peninsula," said Living. "Although Virginia's bald eagles are moving into the early part of their nesting season, it is still possible to have an unattached adult passing through."

Every year, hundreds of tourists visiting remote islands off the Tasmanian coast are enchanted by the site of little penguins - also known as fairy penguins - making their way across the sand dunes after dark towards their burrows.

But on Bruny Island, south of Hobart, visitors are just as likely to be confronted by the sight of tiny penguin carcasses littering the road.

The dirt road along the neck which connects the two islands that form Bruny is part of a corridor penguins use to make their way to their colonies.

Conservationists claim about 50 penguins are hit by cars every week.

They say the future's looking bleaker for the tiny bird, with a plan by the State Government to seal the road and increase the speed limit.

Dr Eric Woehler from Birds Tasmania says the population of little penguins across Tasmania is already under threat from a decrease in habitat and predation from cats, dogs and more recently, foxes.

"The concern that we have is that by sealing the dirt road and increasing the speed limit, we're going to see an increasing number of penguins being killed by cars on the neck," he said.

"As it was on a dirt road we're getting six or seven birds a night being killed by cars."

But he says the group has received no response to 12 months of lobbying the Department of Infrastructure to include speed humps and penguin-sized tunnels in its plans.

"What we're talking about for tunnels under the road is a small tunnel literally not much smaller than a penguin, probably about 30 centimetres or so," he said.

"It's not much additional cost to the road if it's going to be constructed and sealed anyway."

He has accused the state government of putting election points ahead of environmental concerns in pushing ahead with the infrastructure upgrades on the island - which falls under the key Tasmanian electorate of Franklin.

"You'd have to wonder if the electoral candidates for Franklin really want to have killing penguins as part of their election platform," he said.

Dr Woehler says there's also concern over the impact on operators of popular twilight penguin tours.

"The last thing we want to see is tourists stepping off the bus of an evening to see the penguins walking up the beach and being confronted with dead penguins in the car park," he said.

"It's just completely the wrong message to send out."

A spokesman for the Department of Infrastructure, Rod MacDonald, says all environmental approvals have been received and a contract for the upgrade will be awarded next month.

Mr MacDonald says the department is open to hearing concerns from conservation groups about the impact on the penguin population.

A rare hummingbird that had been sustained well into winter by the sugar water in a feeder at a Harwich home, has died.

Dr. Tom French, MassWildlife assistant director for natural heritage and endangered species, said the Allen's hummingbird, a type that has only been seen in Massachusetts three times, died Jan. 19.

New England Hummingbirds: www.nehummers.com

Christine Omar thought the day might come when the tiny hummingbird, which had been visiting the feeder outside her sunroom since October, just wouldn't show.

On Jan. 10, she assumed the worst when the bird didn't appear for three hours in the morning. It had come to the feeder every day, every few minutes, sunup to sundown, for months, sometimes through horrendous winter storms.

"I thought it had died. It was a really cold morning," Omar said yesterday.

Then, it suddenly materialized, sipping sugar water from the plastic red bell of one of the fake flowers on the feeder.

Just as suddenly, one of its wings got some sugar water on it, froze, and the bird dropped from the feeder onto the wood deck.

t was taken to Wild Care in Eastham, where clinic director Lela Larned and her staff tried to bring it back to health. But their best efforts were not enough.

"There was nothing done wrong here. These birds are hard to keep alive in captivity," French said. All three of the Allen's hummingbirds that have been seen in the state died in New England winter weather.

However, some populations of the birds are tough enough for milder winters.

Although the Southern California population of Allen's hummingbirds doesn't migrate at all, other groups leave Baja, Mexico, in February to spend the summer in Oregon.

"They are pretty winter-hardy birds," French said. Each year, more seem to come to the East Coast, particularly to southeastern states such as Georgia and Florida.

These wayward souls are not lost, said French. Possibly, they are trying out a different locale, part of Nature's way of ensuring the continuation of the species if their preferred destination becomes inhospitable.

Capturing a hummingbird and transporting it to a more hospitable climate is not the best course, he said. The birds learn their migration route by flying it, and would be confused as to how to get back to California. Instead, it's best to feed them enough to increase body fat, then release them to fly back on their own.

And, French recommended taking hummingbird feeders down in October to encourage them to move on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_sBS7m3Qlo&feature=player_embedded

New banner for the forum...nice!

Oh yeah!! 

Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 7:25 PM CST
In a well landscaped backyard, with berry bearing shrubs, both deciduous and evergreen trees and two or three well stocked bird feeders, a spotted towhee was scratching under a shrub. House finches were busy depleting the stock of sunflower seeds, white crowned sparrows and white winged doves were beneath the feeders, retrieving seeds dropped by the finches. A robin was eating berries and a flicker inspected a tree trunk.

Suddenly the peaceful scene erupted in chaos. Birds flew erratically in all directions and a small, round winged raptor with a long tail jetted into the yard, through the trees, over the shrubbery, around the house, back into the trees. The little hawk was so agile, so well adapted to flying through thick growth, that scarcely a leaf or twig vibrated as it darted into the shrubbery. It reappeared with a house sparrow in its talons, and perched on the fence and began plucking feathers from its prey.

The intruder was an accipiter (ak-SIP-ih-ter), a name derived from a Latin word meaning “to seize.� The accipiters are bird catching hawks and are frequent visitors to successful feeding stations. Midland County hosts two species -- sharp shinned hawk and Cooper’s hawk. Sharpies arrive about the third week of September and stay until early May. Cooper’s hawks arrive a week or two later, and are usually gone by May 1. Accipiters are much more common in residential areas than in open country, and are also found in the parts of Midland Draw that are wooded.

Both are forest dwellers in the breeding season. The sharp shinned breeds in the northern boreal forest and in the coniferous woodlands in the mountains of the U. S. West. The Cooper’s hawk is at home in more southern latitudes, just barely crossing the Canadian border. It has nested in every one of the lower 48 states, but is a very rare breeder in Texas. Cooper’s hawk is one species that has benefited from the reduction of vast tracts of primeval forest to discontinuous woodlands, as it prefers to hunt in open areas near its nest.

Telling accipiters apart is the most difficult problem facing serious birders -- even veteran birders are often content to say, “I saw an accipiter today,� not even making a guess as to which species. The sharp shinned is the smaller of the two species, but males and females are different sized, and the female sharpie is almost as large as a male Cooper’s -- so size is not very helpful. Adults of both are blue-gray above and have white underparts with red brown crossbars. Both have eye stripes, white undertail coverts and banded tails. Immatures have brown underparts and the underparts are streaked vertically with brown or black.

Another bird hunting hawk of the winter, but not nearly as common are merlins. Lark buntings and white crowned sparrows foraged in tall tumbleweeds and meadowlarks sang early morning melodies. Out of nowhere a small hawk appeared, wings beating strongly as he flew just above the mesquite bushes. The small birds vanished and the hawk coursed by, his angular wings beating with short, powerful strokes. This was no sharp shinned hawk that flies with a flap, flap, flap, sail. His pointed wings emphasized that this was a falcon, not a sharpie in a hurry. His dark, checkered underwing and his dark tail with light bands made it obvious he was not a kestrel. Neither was his strong, direct flight anything like the buoyant, dainty flight of a kestrel. The merlin flew across an open field to the south, made a brief pass at a flock of pigeons and was gone.

In the summer, merlins live in the boreal forest, near parklike openings or barrens or bogs, for they must have open country for hunting. In winter many move southward throughout western United States, but they are nowhere common during the cold season. Midnats rarely see more than two a year, those usually in January. Merlins catch their prey in short, fast dashes -- they do not stoop like peregrine falcons. For this reason they like open country where the birds they are chasing have fewer places to hide. They often hunt flocking species; blackbirds, horned larks, longspurs, lark buntings in open fields, and shorebirds over mud flats. Merlins sometimes follow a northern harrier, (a larger hawk) seeking prey flushed by the larger bird. Merlins are about the size of doves, and can capture and kill birds ranging in size from hummingbirds to pigeons.

The late Frances Williams was the editor of the Midland Naturalists’ newsletter, “The Phalarope,â€� for 35 years. This story was developed from her work.   

[Maybe Rochester can send that snow to Jersey. We have no snow. I'm waiting for the "BIG" one! Thanks Aafke, I miss the contests.]

This sounds like fun Aafke and with Rochester expecting some potentially heavy snow over the next few days, it should be fun getting some pictures.   

Thanks for running this Winter Time Contest!   

Maybe Rochester can send that snow to Jersey. We have no snow. I'm waiting for the "BIG" one!

Thanks Aafke, I miss the contests.

Very good story Gayle...thank you.

This is not a story.  It is a collection of data and references to provide the curious reader with an increased understanding of the difficulties of establishing a new migratory flock of whooping cranes.

If this is the gatekeeper's imprimatur, I guess I should be grateful.

Oh duh sorry, info....

Yippie!  I heard my first pair of Cardinals singing in the last few days.  So, for those of us who hate the cold, there is hope on the horizon! 

But, my question is this.  With spring approaching, more and more webcams will be starting to broadcast.  Is there are directory, either here or elsewhere, for these webcams?  So, when someone says, "you should have seen abc on webcam xyz" this morning, we would know where to go. 

Excuse me if it is an apparent link and I don't see it! 

http://www.littlebirdiehome.com/WCPALL.html  I use this one, it has so many cams.

http://outdoorchannel.com/eaglecam/

Nest Location

The eagle nest is located approximately 75 miles from Washington, D.C. on the campus of The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services' National Conservation Training Center. The campus is in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, along the Potomac River.

This is Live with sound.

[How appropriate he sits by the American flag.]

Red-tailed hawks that like to swoop around the lower East Side are captivating the local humans.

Lorraine Sepulveda, 53, a mother of five who has been "stalking" the majestic birds for two years, said she saw one perched up on the roof of a building at E. Houston St. and Avenue D on Sunday, "just hanging out like a superhero."

"I said, 'Omigod! I've been looking for you,'" recalled Sepulveda, who said she bought a pair of binoculars just to keep track of her feathered friends from her apartment at the Baruch Houses.

Johnny Reyes, 18, a neighborhood resident who has dubbed the hawks "the sky beasts," said, "They come down and they eat squirrels, rats, birds.

"People who walk their little dogs are always looking out for the hawks."

Hawks first appeared in the neighborhood in spring 2008, when two of them built a nest for their three fledglings.

Their choice location was a fifth-floor air-conditioning unit at Public Schools 9-4/188 on E. Houston St., according to school custodian and bird enthusiast Bill Tatton.

After losing the male hawk and two chicks to bacteria contracted from what Tatton calls "bad pigeon," the two surviving hawks left their nest but remained in the neighborhood, flying around to hunt for food.

Tatton has documented the hawks' presence with photos over the past two years.

"These birds are so powerful and so beautiful, how can you not be inspired?" said Tatton, 53, of Pelham Bay, the Bronx.

So far no one has attempted to name the powerful birds.

"I wouldn't go as so far as to give a bird of prey a nickname," said Tatton.

As of 2007, 32 nesting pairs of red-tailed hawks were identified across the city, with many more of the species, possibly hundreds, passing through the five boroughs each year, according to Sarah Aucoin, director of the Urban Park Rangers.

The most famous city pair were Pale Male and Lola, who roosted on the upper East Side.

"The hawks who are able to successfully nest and reproduce and find good hunting tend to stay," said city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

"In recent memory, there have never been more hawks than there are now in the most unusual of places," Benepe added.

How appropriate he sits by the American flag.

OREGON COAST - Brown Pelicans are washing up dead along the Oregon coast and those that are surviving are starving and begging for food from beachcombers, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to wildlife officials, the pelicans usually head south in large numbers in October. But this winter, a large number of them stayed along the Oregon coast and recent storms and high winds have limited their ability to hunt and dive for food.

Should you feed them?

The answer is NO. The pelicans have a particular diet and despite your good intentions, you may be doing them more harm than good. For example, feeding them the bones and heads of fish can cause damage to their throat pouch and fish bait may be contaminated with harmful bacteria or be treated with chemicals that can make a pelican very ill.

What can you do?

If you come across a Brown Pelican that appears to be starving...

    * If the bird is in the area of the coast from Astoria to Yachats, call the Wildlife Center of the North Coast at (503) 338-3954.
    * If the bird is in the area of the coast from Florence south to Gold Beach, call Free Flight Bird Rehabilitation at (541) 347-3882.

If you come across a dead Brown Pelican...

    * Leave it where you found it.  Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act it is illegal to possess any part of a migratory bird, dead or alive.
    * Contact the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team at (206) 221-6893.

[So many species in trouble, it's so sad.]

 DALLAS — The world's last remaining natural flock of endangered whooping cranes, which suffered a record number of deaths last year, will probably see another die-off because of scarce food supplies at its Texas nesting grounds this winter, wildlife managers said.

The flock lost 23 birds in the 2008-2009 winter season, in part because its main source of sustenance, the blue crab, all but vanished from drought-parched southern Texas. The rains eventually came, but they were too late to produce healthy amounts of blue crabs for this winter.

"We're looking at a pretty slender year, prey-wise, and it's going to make the cranes work harder to get food," said Allan Strand, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in South Texas. "I feel that we're probably going to have a die-off. It's conceivable that we could have a significant die-off."

The whooping crane, the tallest bird in North America at about 5 feet, was nearly extinct in 1941 before making a steady comeback. There are three flocks now, but the one that travels 2,400 miles each fall from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast is the only one that migrates without human help.

According to the most recent aerial survey, there are an estimated 263 birds in the Texas flock. The survey, conducted last week, found that one chick has already died and another was missing.

It's normal for one crane to die in the average November-to-March winter season, and last year's 23 deaths were the most since 1938 when the wildlife service began tracking cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Corpus Christi.

Also in last week's survey, Tom Stehn, the wildlife service's whooping crane coordinator, noted some birds were already leaving the marshlands to search for food elsewhere. An extended hunt for food would burn more important energy that the cranes need to survive the lean winter months, he said.

The crabs are loaded with fat and calories, and an adult whooping crane can eat up to 80 a day. But when their crab count is down, the cranes can end up in bad shape, particularly after the draining migration from Canada, Strand said. Last year the flock's hatch was down about one-third, and "that's a direct correlation to the birds' health when they get back," he said.

The cranes face other challenges. They are losing habitat to housing developments that draw even more water out of their nesting grounds along the Guadalupe and San Antonio rivers.

Last month, a conservation group filed paperwork to sue state regulators, alleging they allowed too much water to be taken from the rivers during the crane wintering season. That overuse increased the salinity of inland waters, hurting the birds' water and food supplies, the group said.

The wildlife refuge has requested permission to put out calorie-rich "crane chow," the same kind of food the birds eat in zoos. Even if they are allowed to do that, there is no guarantee of success.

The cranes generally nest in pairs or as a couple with one juvenile spread out along a 30-mile coastline. Even if the food distributors correctly target the birds, there is no guarantee they will eat the chow.

Some experts disagree with supplemental feeding, but Strand said it might be necessary.

"The cranes are not a viable population," he said Tuesday. "They can't support themselves. I hate to think if we don't do it and we lose another 30 or 40 cranes this year, I don't know how we're going to explain it."

___

On the Net:

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/aransas

So many species in trouble, it's so sad.