Beautiful bird! 

(won't say my time...WAAAAYYYY out of practice  )

One happy dog

Music's pretty good too! 

It was VERY exciting! 

Once I reviewed the pictures I realized I had actually caught the 1st one flying across the field...guess I pulled into the parking lot quicker than I thought!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=792130516606%3A257214376

  So, as I'm working on the eagle album I realized I never finished labeling my pics from my July visit to Rochester...so I never posted a link to them.  

There's a bunch still unlabeled from UB, Statler & Niagara Falls, but here they are anyway!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=192130516606%3A803668539

And thanks, once again, to all my friends in Rochester for hanging out with me...schlepping me around...and just making a "not much to see" visit as enjoyable as any I've had there before!

So I'm driving down the road about 1/2 mile from my house to go grocery shopping.  Up ahead on the right I see a large dark bird in a leafless tree right on the side of the road.  First thought is TV.  Then it opened it's wings and my brain did a quick ID-it wasn't TV wings-white head-it was a BALD EAGLE!  It flew RIGHT OVER MY CAR!  I'm a terrible judge of size, but I keep thinking 8 foot wing span...HUGE!  Then I realized there was a second one!  All this as I'm slowing down from 50 mph & pulling into the parking lot of a deserted restaurant.  The second one took off as I managed to get the camera turned on & caught it flying on the other side of the road toward the creek.  I didn't realize until I looked at my pics that I also caught the first one landing in a tree.  The second one joined it and I was able to watch them perched for about 5 minutes!  The album is loading, but here's one of them perched together! 



I'm still smiling!

We been there and done that. There is no way to know for sure. As far as we know though there was only 2 with green tape this year. Sunshine and sorry but the other slips my mind and its too late to ask Tracy. Will let U know tomorrow. No point in speculating though.

No, there's no way to know for sure without a positive read on the band.  But it sure is nice to think Sunshine is still doing well and somehow found her way to her aunt's place for a visit!

[green tape and a black over black band]

As of right now,as we cant read the band number from Anns none-the-less great photos, we are unable to ID the Mystery Guest. We can see it has green tape and a black over black band, which means it is a Peregrine which CPF banded. We can also see that the bird isnt adult, which narrows the number of birds it can be.

I knew this was tickling my brain for a reason.  Then I was showing a friend at work around the CPF site.  When I opened this picture it came to me...


Photos by Richard Sigesmund at Bluffer's Park August 2011
www.mr.sharp-photo.com

Sunshine is banded black/black 24/X with green tape on her USFWS band...

Not saying it was her at Harlequin...there are probably lots of others banded this year with green tape...just sayin'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TlNOwwQQJk#  We can do this!

Aw Man!  How did I miss this?  Good find D!

How 'bout a zipline ride from Zerox to OCSR for a new feature!  

and we can yell "WEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE!" all the way.   

I apologize in advance... 

GEICO-Piggy

I made a slight change to the slide show on the home page. You may not even notice.

http://rfalconcam.com

Slides going sideways.  And, of course, my brain isn't remembering how it was before (fade?) but sliding left is new...

Nasty looking weather at the Sheraton this morning!

I know I'm somewhat "preaching to the choir" here, but as the Wildlife Center of Virginia admitted their 3rd lead-toxic bald eagle of 2012 yesterday I believe this is an issue we need to start talking about and spreading the word outside the group...

"WCV Position on Lead Toxicity in Raptors
Summary of the issue:
Lead is a soft, pliable, elemental metal that is found in naturally occurring deposits around the world.
While it has been used for centuries for many purposes, the highly toxic properties of lead have become
well-known over the last 100 years through the issues of food contamination in cans sealed with lead
solder, the toxic effects of lead-based paints and glazes, the polluting effects of leaded gasoline, the
presence of lead in drinking water which passes through pipes connected with lead solder, and, more
recently, the toxic effects of lead ingested by wildlife."

The rest of the paper can be found here:
http://www.wildlifecenter.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/WCV-Position-on-Lead3.pdf

Ed Clark has been sharing talking points-including the fact that he is a hunter and really does understand the issues-on the moderated critter cam blog which I hope to gather in one place this weekend. 

1st egg of 2012

Friends of Blackwater NWR

As our quick-fingered fans have noticed, we just got our first egg of the 2012 season! The earliest we've ever had an egg on the Blackwater Eagle Cam. We think the egg was laid earlier this afternoon, and we hope to see a second egg in two to three days.

I thought something was up-I just tuned in a little while ago & she was stuck right tight to the nest! 

Yeah, I have to agree, not a transmitter.  Too low on the bird and too long.  

Well, I agree about this particular bird...it does look like a falconers jess & tether.  But just for the record I do recall seeing a transmitter sort of like this.  I'm thinking bald eagle/hack release/maybe west coast...anyway, it was an antenna attached to the leg.  Maybe the kind you need to read with an antenna on the ground.

(edit) It was on a much larger bird than this...

No clever haiku
will be coming from Kitty
No poet is Ei