Janet B., a member of the Evanston falconwatcher's group, posted this account. She was watching the Pittsburgh cam yesterday and saw the following:

"Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning has a scrape with 5 chicks online...4 of them are already growing serious dark feathers, while the 5th...is still mostly fluffy down. A parent arrived with medium-sized songbird, and all 5 lined up, Fluffy first. The parent started feeding from left to right right down the line, and the last 3 politely waited a bit before starting their squawking. Fluffy stayed noisy and insistent until it was evident that the others were now getting all the food - at which point Fluffy left the line, wandered behind its siblings to the END of the line and started stealing a few more bites. Parent noticed this and pointedly starting skipping Fluffy, at which point Fluffy reached down and stole a leg or tail or something, carried it off into a corner and proceeded to gorge itself without any parental help. I know which chick I'm betting will make it to adulthood!!"

Carol, have a wonderful birthday and a great year.
Wishing you health, joy, and many critters, winged and otherwise!!

[Chris writes:]

Chris writes:

May 20 – [3:02 AM] I brought the owl’s nest box down early this morning and attached the owlet rail outside the entry/exit hole. This was done in anticipation of the eldest owlet leaving the nest soon, and in the expectation that having a perch outside the hole must make that critical leap from nest to tree easier.  This also gave me an opportunity to open the nest box and take some family portraits.

Eldest Owlet.http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100520/_MG_0039.jpg
Youngest Owlet, badly photographed. http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100520/_MG_0012.jpg
Owl Box on Ground with Owlet Rail Installed. http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100520/_MG_0003.jpg
 
There’s a paper towel temporarily to stuffed into the entry/exit hole to calm the owlets, but, otherwise, the box looks much the same once it’s been returned to its rightful place in the tree.
Needless to say, this threat to the nest and owlets resulted in repeated attacks by the adults, from which my scalp probably carries a good number of scratches, all well-deserved. And all in a good cause.

[1:21 AM] Here’re the promised photos of the adults. Don’t ask me which is the male and which is the female – unless I was lucky enough to observe sexually distinctive behavior (like tearing up prey and feeding it to the owlets, which only the female will do), there’s no way for me to know.

Adult One http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100520/_MG_0077.jpg
Adult Two http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/owl/2010/20100520/_MG_0085.jpg

Alternately, if both owls suddenly took leave of their senses and let me get hold of them, I might be able to determine their sex by weighing them, because females are generally heavier than males. However, there’s some overlap of their normal weight ranges, so even weighing them doesn’t guarantee an answer. Fortunately, somehow, the owls have it all figured-out.

what would be really inconvenient would be if some of them were WAY outside your body, like in Wisconsin or somewhere.

"The average person has about 10,000 taste buds. Chickens, by contrast, have just 24... Pigs... have 15,000 taste buds; and cows a whopping 35,000. Surprisingly, catfish have nearly 300,000, including some on the outside of their bodies."

I'm just sayin.

I tried...

that's so funny - Ei, you beat me to posting that by seconds.
Isn't that incredible?

A first good look at the first eyas:

thank you, Shaky. that's great.

jeez, Ei, that's that funny cross-eyed falcon look Mariah got sometimes.

Speaking of funny looks,

did one leave the box???

"I'm a mommy!!!"  She kind of has that "now what do I do?" look.

what she probably shouldn't do is get so carried away messing with that eggshell that she forgets what she's sitting on. That squeaky-toy sound is like an alarm: HEY! COOL IT!

five HUNDRED nineteen viewers? yikes?

looks fun, doesn't it?

I knew they reminded me of someone

Here's someone who REALLY likes the hooters dress!