Well, sort of.

All 20 young birds have left the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, where they have been taught to follow the aircraft over the past few months. But only some of them flew to the first stopover just 4 miles away.

The remaining eight were put into special crates and driven to the roundup point last week after foul weather and the birds' reluctance to leave their comfortable pen kept them grounded.

The fitful start to the more than 1,200-mile trek now puts the team from Operation Migration several days behind schedule in what has become the latest departure in the nine-year history of the whooping crane reintroduction project.

The team had set this year's departure date for Oct. 10 but didn't get any of the majestic birds out of the refuge until Oct. 16.

Organizers' hopes were high Monday morning that the weather would break and allow the ultralight crew to lead the birds to the next stopover, less than 20 miles away in southern Juneau County, Wis.

But the clouds hung too low, preventing the aircraft and birds to take to the air as a group for the first time.

Liz Condie, executive director for Operation Migration, tried to stay positive. "It's not unlike anyone else's situation,'' she said. "There are elements of everyone's work that are frustrating and hard to deal with.''

She said the hope is that somewhere along the flight, they can make up the time.

Condie said the setbacks just make the crew more appreciative when they make the final delivery of their precious charges.

"You can't do a project with wildlife and not expect the trials and tribulations because wildlife is never predictable,'' Condie said. "It almost doubles the appreciation you have when you've clearly accomplished what you've set out to do.''

She said that those with Operation Migration signed on for one specific task: to establish a flock of 125 migrating whooping cranes, including 25 breeding pairs. That's why the crew comes to work, she said, "with the hope that every year you're one step closer.''

The whooping cranes are bonded to the ultralights from Day One as sounds of the aircraft are played for the eggs. Once hatched, the crane chicks are reared by handlers in crane costumes so they never see people.

The cranes in the "Class of 2009'' represent the largest group of birds ever to be led to Florida. For the first seven years, the whooping cranes are led to the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles the Citrus-Hernando county line.

This is the second year that half the flock will be split in the Florida Panhandle to spend winter at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.

In the spring, the cranes respond to their natural instinct to fly back north without assistance and many spend their summers back at the Necedah refuge in that general area.

Because of the efforts of Operation Migration and the other public and private groups that compose the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, there are 77 wild whooping cranes in eastern North America, part of the cranes' historic habitat.

The birds were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s; now there are thought to be about 500 whooping cranes in North America, with 350 of them in the wild.

Another migratory flock splits its year between the Texas Gulf Coast and northern Canada. About 30 nonmigratory whooping cranes live year-round in the Kissimmee area.

[Click on the pics to enlarge]

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/oct/25/captured-moments-photographer-goes-to-great-to/

Some of these pics are amazing, especially the  with the 

Click on the pics to enlarge

[IMAGE: These eggs, collected in August 2006 from an orchard oriole nest in Sinaloa on the western coast of Mexico, are evidence of a second breeding season.]

         
Biologists for the first time have documented a second breeding season during the annual cycle of five songbird species that spend summers in temperate North America and winters in tropical Central and South America.

It was known that these species, which migrate at night when there are fewer predators and the stars can guide their journey, breed during their stay in temperate regions of the United States and Canada.

But it turns out that they squeeze in a second breeding season during a stopover in western Mexico on their southward migration, said Sievert Rohwer a University of Washington professor emeritus of biology and curator emeritus of birds at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the UW.

"It's pretty much unheard of to have a nocturnal migrant with a second breeding season. It's a pretty special observation," Rohwer said. "We saw these birds breeding and we were completely surprised."

Migratory double-breeding has been observed in two Old World bird species on their northward migration, but this is the first documented observation of "migratory double breeders" in the New World, and the first anywhere for the southward migration, Rohwer said.

The scientists traveled to the lowland thorn forests of coastal western Mexico to survey and collect songbirds that had raised their young in the United States and Canada and then immediately migrated to Mexico to molt, or shed and replace their feathers.

But during July and August in three consecutive summers, 2005-2007, the researchers found individuals from five species – yellow-billed cuckoos, orchard orioles, hooded orioles, yellow-breasted chats and Cassin's vireos – that were breeding rather than molting.

They found evidence that the birds had, in fact, bred earlier that year. Females of all five species examined in July had dry and featherless brood patches, indicating they had bred earlier that summer. (To more efficiently transfer heat to eggs, the abdominal brood patch becomes featherless and thickened with fluid when females are incubating, but as the young mature it dries out and remains featherless.). In the Mexican breeding ground, there was a complete absence of young birds, indicating the females had not bred in the area of the thorn forests.

Active nests were found for two species and males of all five species were singing and defending territories or guarding females, behaviors associated with breeding. In addition, isotopic analysis of the birds' tissues showed that many had recently arrived in west Mexico from temperate areas farther north.

Rohwer is lead author of a paper describing the findings, published the week of Oct. 26 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Coauthors are Keith Hobson of Environment Canada, a national agency charged with preserving environmental quality, and Vanya Rohwer, a graduate student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He is Sievert Rohwer's son and took part in the work while a UW undergraduate. The research was funded by the Burke Museum Endowment for Ornithology, the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation, the Nuttall Ornithological Club and Environment Canada.

The observation is much more than an oddity in bird behavior, Sievert Rohwer said. He noted that orchard orioles might raise a first brood in the Midwestern and south-central U.S. and a second on Mexico's western coast, yet both sets of offspring find the same wintering area in Central America. The question is how both groups find the right place, since they must travel in different directions.

Then there is the yellow-billed cuckoo, once commonly seen throughout the western United States and as far north as the Seattle area but now seldom seen along the West Coast. Disappearing habitat in the U.S. is usually cited as the reason.

But Rohwer believes the real problem could be the transformation of thorn forests of southern Sonora and Sinaloa, states in northwestern Mexico, into irrigated industrial farms. That loss of habitat, he said, could mean not enough young are produced in the second breeding season to sustain the populations previously seen on the U.S. West Coast.

"It turns out that many of those migrants, both molt migrants and the newly discovered migratory double breeders, are dependent on the low-altitude thorn forests that become very productive during the monsoon," Rohwer said.

The thorn forests lie in an arid and forbidding scrubland that springs to life with the monsoon lasting from June through August. The monsoon brings virtually all of the area's annual rainfall. The small trees leaf out and insects become abundant, making an ideal stopover for migrating songbirds.

However, with plenty of biting insects, temperatures often at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity hovering near 100 percent, it is a difficult place for researchers to work, so there has been little previous documentation of life in the thorn forest. The new findings could spur more work there.

"For western North America, the conservation implications are pretty serious," Rohwer said. "Biologists know theoretically that they should pay attention to these migration stopover sites, but they've been largely ignored for their conservation implications."


IMAGE: These eggs, collected in August 2006 from an orchard oriole nest in Sinaloa on the western coast of Mexico, are evidence of a second breeding season.

It's so good to see Mariah again. I hope she's happy there. I don't know why but I keep thinking like how she is thinking and if she is sad because A&B took over her territory. Does she even care? Do they just forget and move on? We'll never know, I guess. 

Oh back to my point. Dana, your pictures are FANTASTIC. Thank you so much. 

Hello my fellow falcon fanatics!
I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the Medley Centre for the reunion of Queen Mariah and her loyal retinue, but I wanted to thank Carol and Joyce for the beautiful pictures, and Brian for the phone call with the good news.  Hopefully I'll make it to the city one of these days.  I miss you all.
Carla P.
PS.  My Mom is doing well most of the time, but someone needs to be with her 24/7.  I guess that's why I'm a shut-in too 

Oh Carla, we miss you too. Thanks for popping in...glad your OK. Sorry about mom but glad she's doing pretty good. Tell JC we know what he looks like..    Post when you can.

Hi Annette  and Carla  bguitar
  Thanks, you are both right, it's a Blue Tit, 
I changed it on the video.
greetings Aafke

Pffft, I never would have known but I'm learning. 

The nest we liked so much...great video Aafke...I still miss this cam. 

Please keep posting the pics as your friend sends them.  They are wonderful and allow us to see the beauty in such a harsh area.

Oh I'll post them as I get them Lizz..right now he's on a mission for a few days..it's a  so when he gets back, he'll send me more.

[Lots of Starlings]

Here is the Puzzle of the Week 228
Lots of Starlings

I heard a lot of noise, I went into my garden and saw hundreds of Starlings, every time a group of 100 a 200  (I think) flew right over my head, making a lot of noise. This tree was full of birds.

Lots of starlings (228) Jigsaw Puzzle

 my time: 4.09 min for the 48 pieces Classic

   greetings Aafke

Believe it or not, I see that every night around here....Starlings and BIG crows.. .just as the sun starts to set. Great pic Aafke.

and 2 more

Just a couple more

A few more pics...this is amazing

Here's a few pics from around the world...

 
Mystery looms over the downtown nest of Redding's unofficial mascot bald eagles.

Earlier this month, Patriot and Liberty appeared to have made an early return to their Turtle Bay nest adjacent to ongoing construction on Highway 44's Sacramento River bridge.

Two adult bald eagles have been spotted carrying sticks and mending the nest since, but photos of them have revealed dark brown patches of feathers on one eagle's signature white hood - raising questions of whether there is a new bird, or even a new pair preparing to move into the massive aerie.

Please download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player, or enable JavaScript for your browser to view the video player.

"That's not the two that have nested there in the past," said Denise Yergenson, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.

At first, Terri Lhuillier, a Redding science teacher and avid eagle aficionado, said she thought the feathers had been darkened by dirt, but two rainstorms have passed and the markings haven't washed away. A check of bird books showed that bald eagles grow into their trademark white hoods over several years, going from all-brown fledglings to the familiar brown and white combination.

The markings seen on the eagle at Turtle Bay are likely of a four-year old, Lhuillier said. Patriot and Liberty first began building the nest in a cottonwood in 2004 and have raised eaglets there since 2006.

So who is the eagle? And is the other one of the original pair?

"It is kind of a mystery," Lhuillier said.

The pair of adult bald eagles - named by Redding.com readers in an online poll - became locally famous when they resisted an effort by state highway officials to move them to a new nest by wiring a plastic cone atop the Turtle Bay nest in winter 2007. Having reclaimed the nest, the pair of bald eagles successfully raised a pair of eaglets there that spring and a rare trio this year.

A webcam installed by the California Department of Transportation broadcast many of the happenings in the nest to the Internet last year and this spring, before faltering shortly before the eaglets took their first flights in June.

The pair now at the nest likely aren't grown eaglets returning home, said Craig Martz, staff environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Game, although another juvenile eagle has recently been spotted nearby.

"Usually if one of the juveniles comes back, the adults will drive them away," he said.

Patriot and Liberty aren't the first eagles to draw fans for their reluctance to leave their nest despite construction clatter.

Over the past decade the saga of George and Martha, eagles who nest next to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., has often made headlines in The Washington Post and other news outlets around the country. In spring 2006, the tale took a tabloidesque turn when a nest-wrecking younger female eagle attacked Martha, leaving her bloody and grounded. The Post equated the situation to Angelina Jolie's breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's marriage. Treated by wildlife rehabilitators, Martha later returned to the nest.

It's unclear whether a similar drama is set to unfold at the Turtle Bay nest.

Lhuillier said the young eagle appears to be a female because she's larger than the other adult. In general, female eagles are bigger than their male mates, but the birds' sex organs are internal so a DNA test is necessary to determine gender.

"They seem like a pair," she said. "They've been calling to each other and sitting side to side."

She's even caught glimpses of them pecking affectionately at each other.

Having monitored bald eagle nests - including the one at Turtle Bay - from 1992 through 2007 while working for DFG, Bruce Deuel said bald eagles typically mate for life. But if their partner's life ends, they'll find a replacement.

"It's not like they will sit around heartbroken the rest of their life," he said. "They will go out and get a new mate right away."

So the appearance of the young eagle could mean that one of the original pair might have died since the last nesting season ended in June, said Deuel, who retired in 2007.

There's also the possibility that the pair is an entirely new one. If that's the case, Patriot and Liberty could have a fight on their talons when they return to their old nest.

Eagles live upward to 20 years in the wild and are fiercely territorial, Deuel said.

Whoever the pair at Turtle Bay is, it appears they plan to stay.

"If they are working on the nest now," Deuel said, "this is a pair that wants to nest there."

A wild golden eagle rescued by a falconry expert has died after being seized by police and animal welfare officials.

Last November Roy Lupton, 34, a falconer from Hollingsbourne, Kent, was in Perthshire when a friend’s bird became locked in a fight with a wild golden eagle, one of Britain’s rarest birds of prey. There are 442 breeding pairs, mainly in Scotland.

Questions are being asked about the bird’s care at an RSPCA centre after it was confiscated from Roy Lupton, a falconer from Kent, who was nursing the eagle from injuries sustained in the wild.

The episode began in November last year when Mr Lupton, from Hollingsbourne, Kent, who keeps golden eagles and goshawks, set out with friends to take their birds to fly them in their natural habitat in Perthshire.
Related Links

During the trip his friend’s female golden eagle became locked in a fight with a wild golden eagle. Mr Lupton, 34, a member of the Hawk Board, which represents 25,000 falconers, and an expert for Fieldsports TV, thought that the injuries to the wild bird were so serious that it would need veterinary treatment. It had suffered serious damage to the area of the chest where food is stored and near the eyes.

Mr Lupton sought permission from the Scottish Executive to remove the bird and nurse her at his specialist premises at Hollingsbourne. Without authority he would be liable to a £5,000 fine and up to six months in prison for removing a bird from the wild.

He planned to release the eagle in the spring. “I was concerned that the eagle, who I called Colin, was getting too used to humans,� he said. “It is important for these wild birds to be afraid of humans as it helps their protection in the wild. So I thought the best thing would be to fit a satellite monitor on the bird so conservationists could track her progress in the wild.�

Mr Lupton said that he told official from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) about his plans. In May 5 his home and aviaries were raided by three officers from Kent Police, a policeman on secondment to Defra’s animal heath section and a wildlife crimes investigator from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

“I explained everything to them but they were adamant they were going to remove the wild golden eagle and accused me of the illegal theft of the bird and keeping an unregistered bird,� he said.

“But what really appalled me is that they had no understanding of how to deal with such a bird. They brought the wrong box to carry the bird, I had to lend them one of my own.�

The bird was taken to the Mallydam wildlife centre in Sussex, run by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Mr Lupton was formally questioned by police, who passed the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service, but the case was dropped.

He was concerned about the eagle’s fate and was allowed to visit the premises with his vet. “I was horrified by what I saw,� he said. “The RSPCA was keeping the bird on a concrete floor, which is bad for its talons, and there was leaf mould on the roof of the room, which can cause lung infections in golden eagles.�

A month later he was allowed to take the bird home. Her condition had badly deteriorated and his local vet took blood tests. The bird was found to be suffering lead poisoning and Mr Lupton learnt that it had been fed on rabbits which had been shot with lead pellet.

On June 17 he took the bird to a centre in Swindon run by Neil Forbes, an avian veterinary surgeon. The eagle died 12 hours later.

In his autopsy report, Mr Forbes said that the bird was kept in inappropriate conditions while in the care of the RSPCA and was “not provided with good practice in terms of husbandry�.

He said: “Whilst I cannot be certain the bird’s death was a direct result of the Defra seizure and the period of RSPCA care, certainly the stress effect (suppressing the immune system), the persistent systemic infection from the time of leaving the RSPCA care, does indicate a very high likelihood of a causative link between the period of care and the bird’s subsequent death.�

The Hawk Board is demanding answers from Defra about the events.

Defra said that it could not comment on details as the case was subject to an internal investigation. “Animal health officers, with Kent Police, attended a falconry in Kent in the belief that the person in question did not have the correct paperwork for the eagle,� it said.

The RSPCA said: “Staff were extremely upset to hear about the death of this eagle and the society agrees this is a very sad and tragic event.� It said that it had had only two days’ notice to make preparations for the bird and during its stay staff raised concerns that it might have had underlying health problems.

The RSPB said that it was concerned about the eagle’s death and hoped that Defra would learn lessons from the incident.