This is nice

ORVILLE!!! He's back!  (movie)

 
Kodak/Powers

And they don't have to be big ones.  Rich always pulls over to rescue the turtles in the road   

bguitar  go Rich!

http://www.wptv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?articleID=17372  Hope she survives. Ya gotta  people who find and rescue animals.

Does anyone have a picture of it, for those of us that aren't familiar with the big log (wasn't that a Led Zep song)?

Yup..it's a LZ song. 

Not anytime loon.

OK Booby 

  There it goes



(movie)  Orville's been rocknapped!!!!   call  

In addition to last week's replacement of the Main Camera and replacement of a camera inside the Times Square building nest box (http://rfalconcam.com/imprinting/?p=951), today Camera 2 at the Powers building is scheduled to be moved to the Times Square building. This will allow Rfalconcam to cover some of the blind spots in the area around the nest box.

Two cameras will be left at the Powers building to cover that nest box.

Work should be starting this morning and hopefully wrap up early this afternoon.

Oh no.......my spy cam!! 

Willet ever end?   

Hey, I'm just winging it.

Mee too, I have no Egrets! 

People aren't the only ones being impacted by this weeks powerful storms sweeping across the Southland.

More than two dozen injured California brown pelicans have been brought to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro in the past 48 hours, officials said today.

Cold weather combined with poor ocean water quality due to the oil, grease and other contaminants being carried by storm runoff are affecting the birds, says Jay Holcomb, director of the center.

"Seabird feathers provide a nature barrier to water, as well as insulation from the cold," Holcomb said. "These pelicans are getting cold and wet because the water quality is so poor right now and these added contaminants are preventing the feathers from doing their job.

"As well as coping with the storms, many of the pelicans we have received have seal bite injuries, a result of feeding frenzies due to commercial and public fishing," he said. "These injuries make it even more difficult for the birds to cope with the severe weather conditions out there this week."

A lot of Kingstonians are heading south this time of year.

A lot of ducks are not.

It's the third week of January and the waterfowl can still be found in large numbers at various locations around this area -- Confederation Park, the foot of West Street, Fairfield Park in Amherstview and the Howe Island ferry dock, to name just a few.

"It's been a relatively mild winter, so they'll be around along the shore as long as there's open water and there's food for them," said Erling Armson, a biologist with Ducks Unlimited in Kings ton. "Open water is a good food resource."

Most ducks obtain their food by either diving or dabbling. Diving ducks -- the ones in this area include Greater Scaups, Lesser Scaups and Goldeneyes -- feed on molluscs such as zebra mussels.

Dabbling ducks -- such as Mallards, which are prominent in this area -- just dip their heads in the water to get plants and roots.

"If the water doesn't freeze, they may stay all winter," said Armson.

Staying all winter can present problems for the ducks.

"If it gets really cold, they can run out of food, weaken and the mortality rate increases," said Armson. "There may be less plant material, less molluscs. That's another reason to keep going south -- to get access to plentiful food resources."

When the ducks are here, their food resources shouldn't include humans, some of whom regularly feed the waterfowl during winter.

That tends to keep them hanging around," said Armson. "It's probably not a great idea to do it for two reasons: it keeps them here when normally they would push out (south), and the food provided by the average person, corn or whatever, doesn't have the nutritional value that their natural food does.

"It's not good for the health of the bird population."

When the weather does get colder -- this is Canada, after all -- the ducks will head to the United States.

"When the water freezes, that will push them farther south, down to New York State, Pennsylvania," said Armson.

If it's cold in those areas, he said, diving ducks and Mallards both will go farther south to Chesapeake Bay (the largest estuary in the U.S., which lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia).

Migrating south has obvious advantages, said Armson.

"When they move south, because the weather is warmer, they find better food resources," he said.

Should they choose to stick around this region, the waterfowl won't be caught by surprise by an extended cold snap.

"Ducks can anticipate big fronts moving through," Armson said. "They hunker down or move in front of the (cold) front or move south of it."

During winter, they float on the frigid water, prompting people to wonder why the ducks aren't frozen.

"They have an interesting circulatory system," said Armson. "It's like an anti-freeze effect."

A duck's skin is suffused with blood vessels that carry warm blood from inside the body to the outer surfaces.

Also helping it to stay warm in winter are insulating feathers, which retain body heat by trapping warm air near the skin, and thick layers of down, which conserve heat.

"They can tolerate cold weather," said Armson.

[(This weather is wreaking havoc every where)]

Long-lying snow cover has taken its toll of barn owls in Northumberland. Barn owls have been slowly recovering after hitting a population low 20 years ago .

More than 400 nest boxes have been put up for the birds in Northumberland in the last 10 years,

But the recent snow and ice has hit the birds hard, with 15 dead owls having been found so far.

But this number is thought to be only the tip of the iceberg.

The problem is especially bad in the uplands which have seen deep snow for several weeks and where areas are still covered.

There are thought to be between 250 and 500 breeding pairs of barn owls in the county.

They are unable to hunt their small mammal prey successfully when there is snow cover and after three to four weeks can die in large numbers.

Barn owl expert Brian Galloway, who lives in Westerhope in Newcastle, said: "The barn owls have been having a terrible time.

"There will be a lot of dead birds lying around that people will never find.

"They hunt small mammals like mice, vole and shrews in grassland and if there is snow cover for a long time they are absolutely snookered."

Brian said that the dead birds were 50% down on their normal body weight. They normally eat between five and 10 small mammals a day. "If they are not getting any food because of the snow and there is nothing in them during a very cold night, they are not going to survive," said Brian.

"What has helped is that nest boxes have been placed in large barns where you will get an influx of small mammals during very cold weather, but this will only keep the birds going for a while."

Northumberland National Park Authority is asking people to report any dead barn owls that they come across - especially ringed birds.

The information derived from rings, such as how far the birds travel and lifespan, can help experts understand more about them.

Birds should be placed in a sealed plastic bag and taken to a national park centre either at Rothbury or Once Brewed on Hadrian's Wall.

Alternatively the information on the ring can be sent to the British Trust for Ornithology.

Since the 1950s, the barn owl population has suffered from the loss of hedgerows and small woodlands and the trend for turning old barns into houses. With the disappearance of these habitats of the small mammals that are the bird's staple diet, the birds' numbers crashed, reaching an all-time low in the late 1990s.

As a low-flying bird, the remaining population has been further reduced by the increase in motor traffic and trunk roads cutting across its hunting grounds.

Northumberland National Park Authority has been supporting barn owls through the wildlife-friendly farmers of the Coquet Valley, Redesdale, Breamish and along the Hadrian's Wall corridor since 2004.

Volunteers survey hunting grounds, install owl boxes in viable places and monitor populations.

Anyone with barn owls roosting in an outbuilding can leave a little animal feed or grain in an open area in the building to attract mice .

(This weather is wreaking havoc every where)