Aafke!  Hope you have a great day!   

I sent some last night too!

Not looking good for Archer if/when he returns.

[wnyfalconfan (Joyce):]

wnyfalconfan (Joyce): Ring-billed transmitter gull came to visit.

What was the story about this transmitter gull Carol P. was going to share?

 2nd egg is here!!!   

cub hanging on Hopes face Feb 5 2011 at 11 55am004.avi

Beautiful!

How cute is this little one!

  Walkingbird! Welcome!

Welcome to the Forum, csurdak!

My grandfather worked for the Pennsylvania RR in Arcade in the 50's and he and my grandmother had lifetime passes to go on the train whenever they wanted to.  My biggest thrill was getting all dressed up on a Saturday to ride the train from Arcade to Buffalo to spend the day shopping with my grandma, going to lunch with her and then riding the train back.  Those were such wonderful memories.

Here's some more info on the two posted on the Bear study website:

Today, the Ted and Lucky Den Cam showed them playing in slow motion and later showed Ted calmly stealing Lucky’s bedding material while Lucky watched with no sign of concern.  He has seen that happen before, and he can steal it back when Ted is sleeping.  We love how these two buddies get along.  We are very glad we said yes when we got a call from a rehabilitation facility saying they were about to euthanize a cub but wondered if we could use another bear in the forested facility at the Bear Center.   The next day, we met the cub halfway and were off on a joyous journey of watching Ted and Lucky become friends and playmates.  Gentle Ted, one of the largest black bears on record, wanted to get close to little Lucky, but Lucky was scared.  It took from July to October for Lucky to give Ted a chance.  Since then, their raucous play has made audiences ooh, aah, and laugh.  Lucky has an especially playful personality—even with people.  Given half a chance in the enclosure, he likes to take people down and gnaw gently on them.  When he was a cub, he bit too hard during play.  Now, he can control his bite. 

We’re getting pretty brave making pronouncements about the sexes when these cubs are so young—especially starting a week ago when they were only a day old.  We first got an inkling that the dark cub was a female when a brief reflection of what we thought was urine shined from the right spot.  Today, at 11:22:16 the same cub flashed a vulva, which most people would confuse as being a scrotum, but the scrotum is not yet developed in male cubs. We really think we have a male and a female.  This is great because it means there is another female to carry on the trusting tradition of June and Lily.  The male cub will likely leave the study area at 1 or 2 years of age while the female remains.  It starts us thinking more seriously about names.

Another question is about coat colors.  The male is a lot lighter than the female.  At first, we wondered if it was just the light, but it’s consistent.  Could he be our first brown-colored cub?  Some black cubs have brownish fur until the first molt at mid-summer when they turn black, but this one looks lighter than that in this light.  Could Lily have mated with beautiful rich brown Crackle?  We didn’t see her with him, but she roamed far and wide during mating season and was too deep in the forest to join for days at a time.  Anything is possible.

Amtrak train strikes eagle in rare encounter
 By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 3, 2011; 10:26 PM

A symbol of American rail collided with a symbol of American might Thursday on a lonely stretch of track between Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore. Sadly, the bald eagle was no match for the Amtrak passenger train.

The extremely rare encounter happened in a flash, said Craig Koppie, an eagle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. An adult eagle was enjoying a breakfast of fresh deer carcass that lay across the tracks near Aberdeen, Md., along the heavily used Northeast rail corridor.

As the Northeast Regional 111 train chugged south about 8:30 a.m., an engineer spotted the majestic bird and blasted his horn. At first, the eagle didn't budge, Koppie said. Then it slowly took off - too late. The train arrived at Washington Union Station two hours later with the bird stuck to the locomotive like an emblem.

Bald eagles flourish in the area where the incident took place, at the edge of the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground, near a northern section of the Chesapeake Bay. The woods in that area are full of deer, and when waters freeze in winter, the eagles are deprived of fish and snack on dead deer.

"But as far as my picking up a call like this, this is a first," Koppie said. Amtrak officials said they don't keep records of eagle or deer strikes.

The incident triggered a small investigation. Eagles are no longer on the endangered species list but are still shielded by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.


 After an Amtrak police officer pried the bird from the train, he handed it over to federal wildlife workers, who brought it to Koppie.

"It was clearly hit on the left side," resulting in death from blunt-force shock, Koppie said.

If a similar train collision with an eagle was to occur in the near future, federal officials would have a little chat with Amtrak officials, Koppie said. But no one is blaming the engineer.

"Think of how fast a train is moving," he said. "Here you have a snow-covered area and a white-headed bird pretty much hidden. You don't know how high the bird was standing. I'm sure this came up very quick, and he reacted as fast as he could."

14-year-old Ted and his friend Lucky (4) had other dens to choose from at the North American Bear Center near Ely, Minnesota, USA, but they chose to den together.

All summer, these two males played together in their 2 acre forest and pond. In November they worked together to rake leaves, moss, and grass into this den for bedding. Now, they mostly sleep - sometimes apart, sometimes snuggled up together. When sleeping apart, Ted has awakened and stolen some of Lucky's bedding. Later, when Lucky tries to steal it back, he makes a plaintive whine as if asking for permission from Ted, one of the largest black bears on record.


http://www.bear.org/livecams/ted-lucky-cam.html