Kudos to us!

  Hmmm... interesting names.  Wonder where they came from?

We're working on plans for banding day and eyas naming.  We should be making an announcement sometime after the Memorial Day holiday.

I got to spend another fantastic sunny lunch hour doing some downtown falcon watching.  Here's the latest report.

I'd be surprised if falcons had any sense of their own metabolism or that of their offspring.  Feeding doesn't stop because it gets hot outside.  Basically they eat when food is available; the environment has little to do with it (beyond contributing to the overall abundance of prey in the area).

http://birdblog.marchlords.com/  Beauty and Archer in action. Thanks Jim.

You're welcome, and thank you for posting the link

http://birdblog.marchlords.com/2010/05/food-drop-falcon-style.html

Now this may gross some people out, but I've wanted to comment on this for a few days now...

The butchers of the world really need to start hiring peregrines...

When was the last time you purchased a chicken that was this thoroughly plucked?



OK...so it's been thoroughly tenderized too...but still...

I thought we had it good with the old Main Cam (a 3.1MP Kodak DC4800 shooting a 1.6MP image), but the 5MP images from the new one are just amazing.

Here's a picture of the cake...

Today in the lobby of the Times Square Building, Frank, the owner of the little shop down there, had a cake to celebrate the hatching of the eyasses. I took four of the watchers up to my office and after a bit Beauty flew in and out a few times, giving a nice show. She saved a couple closer squawking flybys until minutes after everybody left, though. It was very nice having some watchers drop by rather than peering down at them from my window.

And we enjoyed it as well Mark.  Thanks for the tour.  You have a spectacular view!

And don't forget Valiant (formerly known as Sabrina) from 2006, who turned out to be a big boy, not a little girl  .

[Specto Subitus!]

It looks like Seneca took the Imprints motto with her when she left.

Specto Subitus!

Orphaned falcons have been fostered by other adults, or even raised by humans using falcon puppets to do the feeding.  At this stage of the game the eyases are only interested in eating; as long as there's a source of food the eyases don't care what it is-- whether their own parents, another falcon, or a hand puppet. 

Individual recognition probably isn't possible for the eyases at this stage of their development.  There is some evidence to suggest that they recognize individuals when they get older.  A recent study of birds (I don't believe they were falcons though) showed that they had individualized calls for each member of the family.  In effect, the members of the family had their own names.

In past years we've observed certain siblings showing a preference for hanging out together.  We also know that they can be separated for some time (a few weeks), then reunited and still recognize each other, as happened in 2001 and 2004.  So it seems likely that they can recognize individuals to some extent. 

Many at other sites have said M&K's duty roster was actually unusual.  Only time will tell how A&B share duties going forward.  The eyases are being fed & are growing like weeds.  As long as that continues to be true there's nothing to worry about.

Agreed.  This is a new pair, so we can't necessarily extrapolate our experiences from Mariah and Kaver onto Archer and Beauty.  I think Kaver was somewhat more engaged with eyas care than the average tiercel.

It appears that the two eyases are getting plenty of food at regular intervals, so I have no reason to think that Archer is providing substandard Daddy duty.  My guess is that he's doing most of the hunting and transferring the food to Beauty who takes care of the feeding.

The Nikon F3 with a motor drive and a 250-shot bulk film back was the camera I lusted after when I was first cutting my photography teeth 30 years ago.  Never got one (it was way out of my price range), but I always wanted one.

Well, I have nothing bad to say about Nikon, they make good cameras, as does Canon.  The Panasonic is the one I have experience with though, and it makes a great travel camera.  In fact, the "TZ" in the model name stands for "Travel Zoom".