Just a reminder, in case anyone wants to let Chris know they enjoyed the owlets this year, he likes to get picture postcards from your town; under "Things to know about" at the bottom of this page: http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/  is his PO box address.

Ei, thanks so much for those video links. That feeding one is terrific -- and must have been a ton of work to put together!

this is more or less what we're talking about here. For the record, the sunglasses served to hold the contraption up and balanced.

what do you mean, "at first glance"?  It's a killer whale.
She came out of there too, and flew around. I saw her mate, too.  No question about it.
In fact every nest box on that whole prairie had a little orca sitting in it.

very small orca

As some of you may remember, Lou and I made a deal back in this thread:
http://rfalconcam.com/forum/index.php?topic=707.0
regarding this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ24oBaO56w
which hummingbird feeder I had incautiously admired.
The deal was that if he sent me a reasonable homemade facsimile of this cranially-mounted artifact as a Christmas gift, I would wear it and post images of myself doing so, forever destroying what reputation I might have left as a moral person.
On 4/22 I received a large box containing the following items (as well as succinct instructions that, in the interest of full disclosure, included off-color acronyms not suitable for posting on a family-oriented forum).
Further documentation to follow in subsequent reports.
Please notice that there are FIVE feeders, TWO of which resemble humongous strawberries.
As I understand, the glittery flower stickers are Dana's fault.

one more

The banding went great  - two females and a male.
The $1000 and change that it will cost to get a new computer, camera, line, and set up live streaming video was raised by the evanston watchers' group, so that is coming up.
The buttons the library made with my drawings ran out fast (the library was giving them out free)! I only got a very few!

a few shots:

gotcha, ei. thanks.

I mentioned the screech owl nestbox thread in a comment on Chris' blog and one person answered that she could not see most of the photos in the posts. Does one have to be a member to see photos uploaded into board posts? thanks.

That local TV piece on the evanston falcons is already up for video viewing on the internet at http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,8,80  (on the right you'll see "Peregrine Falcons" in the list of video segments). They took some new footage, but they used still shots from the banding 2 years ago -- I was surprised to see myself holding an eyas!  The banding is today...after that advertising I'm afraid the days of small bandings are over here!

Chicago TV coverage of the evanston falcons coming up in about an hour and a half, if anyone can get that station. I think they will have it on the internet after the airing. This is in preparation for tomorrow's public banding, to be held, as usual, on the third floor of the library. The library had buttons made from a couple of my peregrine drawings to commemorate the banding.

Tonight on Chicago Tonight (Channel 11, 7 pm Chicago time) Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Peregrine Falcons--For the seventh year in a row, a pair of pigeon-eating peregrine falcons has started a family atop the Evanston Public Library. Bird lovers are delighted; pigeons are not.  Eddie Arruza gives us a peak at the nest housing three fledgling falcons.

[Chris writes:]

Wonder what happens if I lean just a little bit more?

well, this is what happens ...

Chris writes:

[9:46 PM] Owlet no. 2 has successfully left the nest box and is climbing in the nest tree under the watchful eyes of at least one of the parents.
http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100522/_MG_0050.jpg

I think it tried again to see if it was a girl owl or a boy owl and actually figured it out!!

do owlets snore?