I've met a LOT of fishermen in my day, but the ice fishermen are the most "interesting".  Daddy used to ice fish on Greenwood Lake.  Daddy didn't built a hut - Daddy set his rigs and walked off the ice, accross the street and hung out at a buddy's house with binocs until the little flags went up! 

I loved Ice fishing    when I was young. We skated while we fished and when we got thirsty, we drank from the fishing hole    ..OMG....I can't believe we did that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enk--aCfHFs

This was sent to me from Janet!! Brrrrr guys.

Looks like Quest may have spent the morning of New Year's Eve on East Charity Shoals.  Did she ring in the New Year on the lighthouse?  The next installment may tell.

The answer was already posted on the "Quest's Week" map:

http://rfalconcam.com/imprinting/?page_id=737

She moved inland and what are those 4 tank thingies? She's quite aways from the nest site but OK, she's in the general area. Thanks!!

Were having a heat wave today 27 degrees.  Shorts and T for me... Hubby is sick, so he's  Why is it when men are home sick, we can't anything done? 

Heck!  I can't see it in 14 point, much less little specs, but that's ok - I'll take your word for it 

    Janet UR funny!

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Default.aspx?tabid=22344

 

(movie)  Maybe "BEAUTY" at the nest? If you look carefully, you see what looks like a falcon under the cam...then fly off. Very small but visible.

http://www.radiocom.net/vx6/connie.htm

Funny, Jeff just sent me the story

That's why they named the runway "PEGASUS"

Looks like Quest may have spent the morning of New Year's Eve on East Charity Shoals.  Did she ring in the New Year on the lighthouse?  The next installment may tell.  The sensor temperature was about 24 C (75 F), a testement to feathers and the avian metabolisim.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105232220446351695936.000479b65e25f0b7f8498&ll=44.337601,-76.816406&spn=0.99203,2.268677&z=9

Paul

Wow, that's pretty close to the border. What a great place to hang out...a Lighthouse!

 The rampaging ground squirrel population in Contra Costa County is truly for the birds, according to agricultural officials.

The county recently put up 20 raptor perches on land in Concord and Walnut Creek where gangs of the rascally rodents have been devouring fruit trees, digging up lawns, invading homes and taking over schools.

The man-made perches are there to attract hawks, falcons and eagles in the hope that they will eat the furry mischief makers and halt their incursions into suburbia.

It is the first time a county government has attempted to control a wild rodent population by luring in predatory birds.

"For years we have received complaints from homeowners that these ground squirrels have been coming onto their property," said Cathleen Roybal, the chief deputy agricultural commissioner for the Contra Costa County Department of Agriculture. "They dig burrow systems under lawns and foundations and they can undermine people's houses. They help themselves to backyard fruit, community gardens and they carry fleas, which can carry diseases."
School invasion

Roybal said the squirrels have recently invaded local schools, where they've stolen children's lunches, munched on wiring and set off alarms.

During a recent trip to Lime Ridge, an open space area next to several housing subdivisions, Roybal pointed out the giant holes the squirrels dug to enter and exit their labyrinthine underground burrows. On a sunny day, she said, Lime Ridge in both Concord and Walnut Creek and Shell Ridge Open Space in Walnut Creek is alive with scurrying rodents.

The perches, built by Wild Wing Co., in Cotati, each stand 15- to 16-feet tall and have wooden platforms oriented so that the raptors can face north, away from the sun. They were strategically placed next to large burrows where colonies of the problem squirrels hang out.

The project, which was paid for with a $4,000 grant from the California Department of Fish and Game, is a unique solution to a common problem.
Highly adaptable

The California ground squirrel, known scientifically as Spermophilus beecheyi, ranges throughout California and particularly likes open rangeland. The cute, bushy-tailed squirrels grow up to a foot long and quickly adapt to humans, especially in areas where picnickers leave them food.

Despite their cuddly look, they have long been regarded as pests. They feed on ornamental plants, trees and will eagerly devour vegetables. They gnaw on the bark of trees, shrubs, vines and burrow around roots.

Ground squirrels are also apt to gnaw on sprinkler heads and irrigation lines. They have been known to harbor bubonic plague, which can be transmitted to humans by fleas.
Population explosion

Contra Costa County has always had a large squirrel population, but wildlife experts said the situation grew into a crisis in part because of development. The clearing of land for housing forced predators, including raptors, to find other places to forage. As a result, open space next to these developments became overrun by ground squirrels.

Roybal said the county agriculture department stopped using pesticides to control the squirrels years ago because of city regulations, so she began researching natural ways to control the rodents.
Perches at key sites

The perches, which were put up in late October, seemed the perfect solution because the highest concentrations of squirrels are in areas devoid of the trees and snags that squirrel-eating raptors like to use.

"What we are doing is introducing man-made dead trees that the birds really covet," said John Schuster who, as the owner of Wild Wing, began building barn owl boxes and raptor perches 30 years ago for grape growers and farmers who needed to control rodents. "It gives them a safe place to hunt from and a secure and stable platform that predatory birds really like to work off of."

The plan is to monitor the perches for a year to determine whether they are being used. Wildlife biologists and volunteers have photographed American kestrels on the perches and found bird droppings and the remains of voles and gophers underneath, indicating owls and smaller raptors are using them.

So far, she said, the red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons and golden eagles that agriculture officials would like to see have not been spotted and no squirrel remains have been found on or around the perches.

"It's too early to tell whether they will hunt ground squirrels, but there is no doubt the perches are helping the raptor population," Roybal said. "Squirrels are a pretty good size so you're going to need a big bird to take those. We don't know if it will work, but we thought it was worth a try."

more pics of crash

Not every landing is perfect in Antarctica. No one apparently injured but landing a jet on Ice is not an easy task....obviously.

Figures it had to be a Pegasus Aircraft landing on a Pegasus runway! 

Barn owls are seen on and in one of the nesting boxes.

That's the new auditory trajectory of Israel's ammunition crates, the result of a new joint project between environmentalists and Israel Military Industries (IMI). The project turns the old ammunition crates into nesting boxes for owls and kestrels, which then feast on the rodents that plague farmers' crops.

"The problem is that wood is very expensive in Israel. Each box cost the farmer who put it up about NIS 700 with wood imported from China. We turned to Israel Military Industries and they offered us as many as we wanted," Motti Charter, scientific coordinator of the project, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Charter is affiliated with Tel Aviv University, which runs the project in coordination with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and the Agriculture and Environmental Protection ministries.

IMI has given them over 500 boxes during the past year. The nesting project started in 1983 with 12 boxes and now there are 2,000 such boxes all over the country, Charter said.

"The idea is to encourage farmers to rely on owls and falcons to get rid of the rodents instead of rodenticides, which are harmful to humans and the environment," he said.
Motti Charter (left) of Tel...

Motti Charter (left) of Tel Aviv University and Sameh Darawshi of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel display nesting boxes made of Israeli Military Industries crates.

Israel has a large population of predatory birds, which has made the project more successful in Israel than in other countries that have tried it, he added.

The army angle came about because of a personal connection of Charter's.

"My best friend is in the navy and he went to IMI to ask for just a few," and from there the endeavor spiraled upward, he said.

Now the boxes are made from recycled wood as well, another environmental plus for the project, Charter noted.

"It's nice to see something that once was used for war, is now being used for something completely different," Charter mused. He added that he did not know of any other military in the world that had been brought into such an environmental activity.

"We've also expanded the project into the Arab sector recently," he said. "Sameh Darawshi, an Israeli Arab that works for SPNI lectures in Arabic to the Israeli Arab farmers about the benefits of the barn owls and kestrels.

"Even in Israel, which has extensive laws concerning the use of pesticides, meaningful enforcement and regulation is sorely lacking," he continued.

"Hunting and poisoning are of course significant causes of raptor population declines throughout the world, but are especially apparent in the Middle East.

"Illegal hunting of birds of prey is widespread in this region, especially the Arab sector because owls are considered 'bad omens' by many Muslims. Once the Arab farmers see the benefits of the owls, instead of killing them they not only protect them, but want more nest boxes," he said.

We're not #11 on the national listing by accident!

1.     Syracuse, NY (housing, pop. 140,658): 115.6 in
2.     Clay, NY (housing, pop. 58,836): 115.6 in
3.     Anchorage, AK (housing, pop. 278,700): 114.0 in
4.     Utica, NY (housing, pop. 59,082): 108.2 in
5.     Flagstaff, AZ (housing, pop. 58,213): 100.3 in
6.     Coconino, AZ (housing, pop. 74,488): 100.3 in
7.     Cheektowaga, NY (housing, pop. 79,988): 93.6 in
8.     Amherst, NY (housing, pop. 116,773): 93.6 in
9.     Buffalo, NY (housing, pop. 276,059): 93.6 in
10.     Niagara Falls, NY (housing, pop. 52,326): 93.6 in
11.     Rochester, NY (housing, pop. 208,123): 92.3 in

http://www.city-data.com/top2/c464.html

Wow....cool...Thanks!

  Every time I look, it's snowing