[Where is M~A~R~I~A~H ??? I hope she's still around!]

I'm sure that Mariah is ok.  She was always scarce this time of year.  We always looked forward to our Winter visiting Peregrines.  Don't think Beauty will allow any into Rochester this year.  She is quite possessive of her nest site.

Where is M~A~R~I~A~H  ???  I hope she's still around!

Thanks Carol...and YES...Beauty is one tough GAL. You know that first hand.

    Love your smileys!     

[Good luck, stay safe all!]

It's really bad out there.  Roads covered in snow.  Very slippery.  Be careful driving if you have to go out.    (This is the only snowy smiley I could find.  LOL) 

Oh, and tomorrow is going to be even worse!

Good luck, stay safe all!

["There are still less than 500 whooping cranes in the world," Condie said. "That's not very many."]

Published: Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 7:06 a.m.
Every fall for the last nine years, Operation Migration pilots have taken to the skies over Neceda, Wis., in ultralight aircraft with whooping crane chicks following closely behind learning how to migrate.
This year, 20 of the endangered birds began their 1,250-mile trip to Florida on Oct. 16.
"They are all just great," Operation Migration Chief Operating Officer Liz Condie said. "They proved to be terrific followers of the aircraft, despite not such a stellar start. They tend to latch on to the wing of one trike and stay with that trike the whole of that migration leg."
Each year there are challenges to be surmounted, and this year is no exception. But in spite of equipment mishaps that have plagued the staff almost from the outset, the birds continue to perform well.
The chicks - 12 males and eight females - are grounded in Franklin County, Ala., waiting for crew members to return from a brief holiday hiatus with their families.
But if the weather cooperates, the whoopers will go airborne again Tuesday, heading to their winter homes in Florida. Half the chicks will end their trek at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida Panhandle. The other half will continue to central Florida, where they will fly over the Dunnellon Airport, allowing the public a glimpse of these rare birds as they wing to their way Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Crystal River, their final destination.
Come spring, the birds will return north on their own.
The 20 chicks are part of a project undertaken by the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, a consortium of government and private agencies from Canada and the United States, including Operation Migration, that works to ensure the survival of the endangered species.
"Over the years, we have led more than 100 birds south," Condie said.
A number of the birds have fallen to predators and other catastrophes. In 2006, all but one in that year's migration died when a storm surge drowned the birds trapped in a pen designed to keep them safe from predators. The lone bird to escape the pen later was killed by a predator.
But there have been many successes as well.
Right now, there are 85 birds in the eastern migratory flock, 48 males and 37 females, Condie said. When the current group finishes its migration, there will be more than 100 whoopers in the eastern flock.
"At the beginning of this project, scientists and biologists projected if we could get up to 125 individual birds in this population, including 25 breeding pairs, they believe the population could be self-sustaining," Condie said. "A couple of more years and we will have worked ourselves out of a job."
Breeding has been an issue. Only one pair from the 2002 migration, affectionately dubbed "The First Family," has successfully bred, hatched a chick and taught that chick to migrate. Sadly, this year someone shot and killed bird Number 217, the mother of that chick, in Indiana.
"It's the only female whooping crane in the population to successfully hatch and rear a chick," Condie said. "This is an enormous loss."
There have been others who have mated and produced eggs, but have abandoned the nest. Many of those eggs have been taken from the abandoned nests, successfully hatched, and trained by Operation Migration, and are now migrating on their own.
This has been a tough year for Operation Migration.
"Lots of drama," Condie said.
Pilot Chris Gullickson was flying in Winnebago County, Ill., when a piece of the ultralight broke and went into the engine.
"He had to put down," Condie said. "That meant we had one trike out of commission and had to get a new engine."
Shortly after, the crew learned someone had broken into their hangar in Wisconsin and stole and damaged equipment.
Then, Don and Paula Lounsbury, volunteers who have flown their Cessna 182 airplane as top cover for the birds in every migration, had their plane go down and flip in southern Illinois. The cause has yet to be determined, but it is believed there may have been a fuel problem.
"Both of those air mishaps - everyone touched down beautifully and walked away without a scratch," Condie said.
While the Lounsburys suffered no injuries, their plane was damaged severely.
At the beginning of the new year, Don Lounsbury will join Jack Wrighter, who also has flown as top cover for the birds, and the two men will continue the migration in Wrighter's plane.
Aside from the mishaps, the migration is going well, Condie said.
"We're a little behind last year's schedule," she said.
The birds arrived in Franklin County, Ala., on Dec. 17. Last year, they arrived at that location on Dec. 12. But last year they flew out on Dec. 29, after a Christmas break, and it is possible they could fly out the same day this year and make up the lost time.
Last year, the migration took 88 days and ended Jan. 23, the second longest migration in the 9-year history.
The longest was in 2007, when the migration was 97 days. The shortest was in 2001 when it was 48 days.
"Hopefully, we can do the next 500 to 600 miles pretty quickly," Condie said. "We always have to hope."
But exactly when the birds will fly over Dunnellon depends on weather.
The birds already are shedding much of their cinnamon-colored feathers. Adult birds are pure white with black wing tips and legs. They have patches of red skin on their faces. They have lived to age 60 in captivity, one even reaching 90. They are the largest bird in North America, standing five feet tall. They weigh 14-17 pounds and their wing span is about 7-8 feet. They fly at about 38 mph, but can reach speeds of 70 mph.
They mate for life and, when they reproduce, generally hatch two eggs, but usually only one survives.
Before the birds are born, the sound of ultralight aircraft is played near the eggs. After the birds are born, they are fed and cared for by people wearing whooping crane costumes and carrying crane puppets. No one speaks near the birds to prevent them from attaching to humans.
The hope is the birds will imprint on the ultralight planes and their costumed pilots so they will follow the aircraft and learn to migrate. The goal is to create a second migratory flock of whoopers in the event the only existing wild migrating flock, which flies from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, should become diseased or die off.
In 1941, there were only 15 whooping cranes in North America, where they are indigenous.
Right now, the eastern migratory flock has about 12-13 breeding pairs, but they have not had great success. Studies have been done and the results should be forthcoming in February. One thought is that black flies may be hindering parents from staying on nests.
"We have photo evidence from last year. They were just covered. The eggs were just blanketed in black flies, just swarms of them," Condie said. "WCEP is looking at alternatives to see if there's something humans can do to help their success."  so sad
The Texas flock, the only totally wild flock of whoopers in the world, lost 20-30 birds last year.
"They are hoping that population will hit around 245 this year when they complete the migration," Condie said.
Even when one counts the whoopers in both flocks, the numbers are not large.
"There are still less than 500 whooping cranes in the world," Condie said. "That's not very many."

[“Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air� will be shown on the PBS show, “Nature,� on Jan. 10.]

Filmmaker Ann Prum of New Haven used high-tech cameras to film elusive hummingbirds, shown here in photos from her upcoming PBS documentary. (Peter Casolino/Register)

NEW HAVEN — Ann Prum is a patient woman.
Staring for hours at a clump of flowers heavy with nectar, with her Phantom high speed camera, her computer and a technician at the ready, Prum has put together a documentary on the smallest warm-blooded creatures on the planet — hummingbirds — and in the process shares the newest science on these avian jewels.
“In all wildlife films, you are waiting for the bus. Is the bus coming or is it the totally wrong bus stop? Once you have waited an hour and a half, does that mean it is never coming or does that mean it is just about to come?� said Prum, describing part of her routine for eight months of shooting in South America and the Caribbean.
“Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air� will be shown on the PBS show, “Nature,� on Jan. 10.
Prum, who lives in the East Rock neighborhood with her husband, scientist Richard Prum, and their three sons, has made 10 films for television, in addition to museum-based and Web-based video for Yale University.
She won a regional Emmy for “Creating the Peabody’s
Torosaurus: Dinosaur Science, Dinosaur Art,� which showed the development of the statute of the dinosaur outside Yale’s natural history museum.
Her forte is illuminating the newest discoveries by scientists that blow apart our preconceived notions of animals. “These are the kinds of films I like to make. They say, you think you know this animal … but we actually don’t know them at all,� Prum said.
The high-tech cameras allowed her to slow down the hummingbirds in flight, shoot mating displays and diving displays, and as the film points out, “break down the barriers of time and space.�
While there are 350 species of hummingbirds, Prum concentrated on a few being studied by scientists, as well as some with a real “gee-whiz� component, such as the swordbill hummingbird, whose 4-inch bill is twice as long as its body and the endangered Marvelous Spatuletail, which has two fan-like balls at the end of its tail.
Not only are these birds beautiful, but they are feisty creatures built for survival who often engage in aerial dogfights to protect a food source, Prum said.
“They are tough. People think they are delicate and jewel-like. They are not like that at all. They are tough as nails. They are incredibly competitive — really defending their resources. It’s the difference between life and death for them, they live so on the edge,� Prum said.
The film answers the basic question “How did they do that?� Since flowers don’t provide a place for the hummingbird to perch, their ability to hover like an insect enables them to dine on nectar, which they consume daily at the rate of half their body weight. Another quarter of their diet is supplied by insects for protein.
Their lower bills bend in the middle and act like a catcher’s mitt to nail fruit flies in mid-flight with deadly accuracy.
“They are less like Tinkerbell and more like Jaws,� according to the film.
Their metabolism is stuck in overdrive with 600 heartbeats per minute at rest, according to the film, and twice that when they are flying.
The Ruby-throated hummer, common in North America, beats its wings an average of 53 times per second, which is why they seldom provide more than a fleeting glimpse to the human eye.
Scientist Douglas Altshuler of the University of California at Riverside found they have flexible shoulders which allow them to move in a figure eight, fly backwards, turn on a dime and briefly fly upside down.
Prum, 47, spent most of her time with her family in the small town of Mindo, Ecuador — the epicenter of hummingbird diversity — when her husband was on sabbatical.
She studied the swordbill hummingbird and the evolutionary bond between them and their favorite plant, the datura, with its long dangling trumpet-shaped flowers. These hummers’ bills are perfectly shaped to reach the nectar deep inside. The birds then carry the pollen from flower to flower.
“The ultimate in flower power,� according to the narrator, actor F. Murray Abraham, commenting on the evolution of the swordbill to accommodate its food source.
A total of 8,000 plant species depend on hummingbirds for pollination.
In Dominica, a Caribbean island south of St. Lucia, Amherst professor Ethan Temeles found examples of sexual dimorphism, where the male purple throated caribe has a short, straight beak and the female’s is longer and curved.
The theory is that the stronger male took over the easier food source, forcing the female to differentiate, confirming what Darwin predicted happens within the same species. Prum took her camera to the highlands of Ecuador, where she found an example of adaptation. The Andean Hillstar lives at the edge of the glaciers, and hops on the ground from flower to flower, thereby using less energy than trying to fly in the oxygen-thin habitat, 12,000 feet above sea level.
Back in California at Berkeley, doctorial student Christopher Clark wanted to know how the male Anis hummingbird made a high-pitched yelp as part of a spectacular diving pattern to attract the female.
With video equipment that shot 500 frames per second you can see the Anis dropping 100 feet at 60 mph, the equivalent of a G-force of 10, enough to black out a fighter pilot.
At the end, it spreads its tail feathers, which vibrate like a reed in a clarinet, producing the characteristic chirping sound. Clark is now doing post-doctoral work at Yale.
In the remote farming community of Pomacochas, in northeastern Peru, Prum documented the search for the Marvelous Spatuletail, which twirls its tail like a cowboy with a rope in a mating dance.
It is believed that there are fewer than 1,000 of them left, as expanding sugar cane cultivation destroys their habitat, but farmer Santos Montenagro is trying to reverse that.
“It’s this great little story about a local guy who didn’t start out to be a conservationist, but he cared about everything around him and now he is the protector of the Spatuletail,� Prum said. Montenagro is planting trees and established a reserve for them as part of a small-scale eco-tourism attraction which he hopes brings some money into the local economy.
The film also documents the extraordinary migration patterns of the tiny, 3-gram bird, from central Mexico to southern Alaska. Some will fly 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico, an 18 hour trip, with no food.
Prum caught up with hummingbird enthusiasts throughout the country who band the small creatures to track migration, with most returning to the same gardens and breeding grounds every year.
It didn’t make it into the film, but Prum found hundreds of people who came by to view a hummingbird who must have gotten blown off course and ended up at a feeder in West Hartford in the winter, where the owner had set up a small heater.
“People were so invested in this little bird that clearly was not going to make it. Hummingbirds really have a way if capturing people.
It feels really special when you see one,� Prum said.
She describes herself as an “armchair scientist,� who got interested in filmmaking and wildlife as part of some opportunities offered through Bowdoin College when she was an undergraduate. She met her husband when she was a field assistant on a series on the Amazon produced by Jacques Cousteau.
Richard Prum, a professor of ornithology and chairman of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, is known for his work on the evolution of feather structure. His theory ties bird origins closely to a group of dinosaurs; the professor was a recent recipient of a $500,000 MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award. One of Ann Prum’s films documents the dinosaur-bird connection.
Next up for Ann Prum is a film on bats, which are facing a lot of problems from white nose disease, a fungal infection that is decimating some populations.
“It will be a challenge to film because like birds, they are small and fast, but you have the nighttime challenge as well,� said Prum, who is looking forward to illuminating the newest science as it tries to save these creatures.

In all of Louisiana's colorful conservation history, no bird has fallen faster or farther than the brown pelican, our long-esteemed state symbol.

In the 1950s, my parents took me from land-bound Lincoln Parish to Barataria Bay on the south Louisiana coast where we watched, in awe, our brown pelicans fly and fish. I never forgot it.

It was an awesome sight for me. The big brown and gray bird with the long bill and 8-foot wingspan looked ungainly and awkward to my young eyes — almost comical.

But then I saw the brown pelican perform a half-roll before making a gravity-defying dive that actually took it under water in a huge splash.

The pelican then scooped up its prey, a fish, in its great pouch — along with a lot of water, which it squeezed out of the corners of its mouth. The fish was finally swallowed in a single awkward gulp.

This was a spectacular sight for me to see in 1956. But by 1969 — only a brief interval — the tens of thousands of brown pelicans were entirely gone from coastal Louisiana — extirpated, extinct.

As it turned out, the brown pelican was the victim of the pesticide DDT, which fatally weakened the birds' eggshells and killed their young — same as with the bald eagles in Louisiana.

DDT was banned in 1971, while Louisiana's fish and wildlife agency re-introduced brown pelicans from Florida into Louisiana's coastal areas with eventual success. It was a long and arduous process.

Now, flash-forward 40 years from 1969 when the brown pelican suddenly disappeared from Louisiana to November of 2009 when the U.S. Department of Interior announced that the state bird had been taken off the endangered species list.

The pelican, which has returned to Florida, the Gulf and Pacific coasts in its tens of thousands, was first put on the endangered species list in 1970. DDT was banned in 1972.

"Today we can say the brown pelican is back," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a conference call with reporters, including the Associated Press.

"Once again, we see healthy flocks of these graceful birds flying over our shores. The brown pelican is endangered no longer," Salazar said.

It seemed that in the blink of an eye, Louisiana lost its great state symbol. Now, four decades after its demise, the Louisiana brown pelican is back, a wildlife legacy that generations of our children will enjoy.

The last for now.

[He followed the tracks]

He followed the tracks

Jeff is having so much fun, he never wants to leave. He's been exploring the whole area. 2 pics are from Christmas Eve. The other 2 are of the Aircraft landing on his new runway "Pegasus"

[As an example of the company's environmental stewardship efforts, Kodak has hosted a pair of Peregrine falcons since 1998. An endangered species in New York State, Peregrines were de-listed from the federal Endangered Species list in 1999, but are still considered threatened. The female falcon, Mariah, and her mates Cabot-Sirocco (1998-2001) and Kaver (2002-present) have raised 35 young from a man-made nest box placed at the top of the company's world headquarters building in Rochester, New York. From 1998-2006 the Kodak Birdcam website transmitted images from the nest box. In 2007 Kodak ceded primary responsibility for hosting the website to the Genesee Valley Audubon Society under the new name Rochester Falconcam.[25] The falcon program is fascinating, educational, and has real ecological benefits, although its ecological benefits and financial expense are vastly less than the ecological costs and financial profit of Kodak's factories and their pollution.]

http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/buffalo/rofoto.html

http://angeladefalco.com/rochester_falcons.php  found this too.

http://adirondack-park.net/pictures/kodak-2007.07.07/index.html I believe this is Linn

Found this on Wikipedia: Environmental record

Kodak has been widely criticized by environmentalists and researchers as one of the worst corporate polluters in the United States. According to scorecard.org[1], a web site that collects information on corporate pollution, Kodak is New York State’s number one polluter, releasing 4,433,749 pounds of chemicals into the air and water supply.[21] While Kodak is still listed as the number one polluter in New York State, its massive industrial site in Rochester, NY reported air releases of 1.8 million pounds in 2006 -- which is a reduction in excess of 90% since 1987.[citation needed]

The Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, author of the Toxic 100, ranked Kodak the fifth largest polluter in the United States in 2002.[22] Kodak responded that the methodology used in the study is faulty, and use of more-accurate assumptions would not place Kodak in the Top 100.[citation needed] In 2004, the Citizens' Environmental Coalition's (CEC) of New York awarded Kodak one of its "Dirty Dozen" awards to highlight its consistently high rates of pollution.[23]

On a more positive note, in 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected Kodak to receive the EnergyStar Sustained Excellence Award for "outstanding and continued leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through superior energy management."[24]

In 2006, Kodak surpassed its voluntary goal to achieve a 20% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.[citation needed]

As an example of the company's environmental stewardship efforts, Kodak has hosted a pair of Peregrine falcons since 1998. An endangered species in New York State, Peregrines were de-listed from the federal Endangered Species list in 1999, but are still considered threatened. The female falcon, Mariah, and her mates Cabot-Sirocco (1998-2001) and Kaver (2002-present) have raised 35 young from a man-made nest box placed at the top of the company's world headquarters building in Rochester, New York. From 1998-2006 the Kodak Birdcam website transmitted images from the nest box. In 2007 Kodak ceded primary responsibility for hosting the website to the Genesee Valley Audubon Society under the new name Rochester Falconcam.[25] The falcon program is fascinating, educational, and has real ecological benefits, although its ecological benefits and financial expense are vastly less than the ecological costs and financial profit of Kodak's factories and their pollution.

Kodak details its annual progress in Global Sustainability, as well as Health, Safety, and Environment, in a Global Sustainability report.[26]

 
Posted: December 27, 2009 - 2:00 AM

CORNWALL — Shoppers stared in amazement last week at a bald eagle soaring on seven-foot wings over New Windsor's Kmart.

Just think. You can go shopping and see an eagle.

We went from about zilch bald eagles around here in the 1960s (DDT whomped their eggs), to today having goodly numbers both in winter and during spring and summer. Why? Because they like our food.

They're scarfing up Hudson River sushi made by local power plant intakes and gobbling easy-to-grab fish all along the Delaware River. In lakes, too.

Listen, if you've got enough eagles to hold the ninth Narrowsburg EagleFest on Jan. 16 in Sullivan County (see www.dveaglealliance.org), you're looking at a huge comeback by a species people once gave up for dead east of the Mississippi.

The EagleFest offers a full day of science, live predators on display, and nearby wild eagle viewing.

And there's more good news for eagle-maniacs.

This year for the first time since the 1890s, some say at least one and maybe two stunning wild, golden eagles (necks are gold colored in adults and juveniles) are gliding around the Hudson Highlands.

Listen to eagle-addled Gerhard Patch, president of the Edgar A. Mearns Bird Club.

"I stopped on Route 9W at a pull-off and got the golden eagle and he was being harassed by a peregrine falcon," recalls Patch. "They put on quite a show. It was something to see." As in dive bombing by the falcon and upside-down mid-air rolls by the eagle (talons up).

Stunning, too, are groups of bald eagles perching on Hudson River ice floes.

They're a mix of Canadian, local and other visiting bald eagles who spend the winter with us.

For some, this is the start of the nesting season. Babies mean extra eats, and the mid-Hudson larder is well-stocked with all kinds of fish. (There's even a man-made perch at Central Hudson's Newburgh power plant complex.).

So, with all our state-threatened eagles around, are we going to outclass Alaska's bald eagle festival? Not right away. They've got an unfair advantage — salmon. So at their November bash they counted 3,000 hungry bald eagles.

Still, we're piling on the numbers. Just how many bald eagles we're hosting is an annual count for the DEC, whose endangered species unit is asking for ground-level volunteer eagle spotters.

Unit chief Peter Nye says anyone can volunteer. The count goes from Wednesday through Jan. 13. (Get in touch at penye@gw.dec.state.ny.us.) Results will be fed into a 25-year national and regional trend analysis, which is going to give the best profile so far of how the eagles are doing nationwide and on the state level.

Warning: Though eagles are now viewing staples even from Metro-North trains, don't even think about bothering them. You might have to pony up a $100,000 federal fine and spend a year in the clink. (State penalties apply, too.) Instead, be satisfied with having your spirits boosted. Especially from the car-choked asphalt of a shopping mall.

[Where is M~A~R~I~A~H ??? I hope she's still around!]

Where is M~A~R~I~A~H  ???  I hope she's still around!

Quest continues to spend most of her time in the vicinity of the Lennox Power Station.  She has made a few side trips though.  On the 18th and 19th she spent some time in what appears to be an agricultural area to the west of the powerplant.  On the 22nd and 25th...

Link:
http://rfalconcam.com/imprinting/?p=942

Nice, she's getting around and enjoying her surroundings. Thanks.

Can this be moved?   ???