Cathedral of Learning

[Donna]

http://www.aviary.org/cons/falconcam_cl.php

Sometime over night she laid it.

[valhalla]

 

That's Beauty's Mama, right?

[Carol P.]

Here's Kate St. John's bird blog.  The 2nd post down shows Dorothy standing next to her 5 eggs.  Thanks to Kathy B for bringing this to my attention.

http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/

[valhalla]

Way to go Dorothy!   

[Annette]

 

[MAK]

Yeeha!  She's gonna need to contact Mariah and Kaver for some pointers on raising so many!

[Donna]

Yeeha!  She's gonna need to contact Mariah and Kaver for some pointers on raising so many!

I hope she has better luck contacting them. I guess if ya speak Falcon.   

[Donna]

The peregrine eggs at the University of Pittsburgh began hatching tonight.

Here is Dorothy and E2’s first chick, just hatched at 11:20pm, in a nighttime snapshot illuminated by infrared light.

The chick has flapped and moved its wing as Dorothy bends over it (red arrow).  Its head is resting on the eggshell.  We could even hear it peeping on the webcam.  See more pictures below.

Happy Hatch Day!

[MAK]

 

[Carol P.]

More aunts and uncles for "our" little ones to be.   

[Donna]

3rd hatch for Dorothy   

[Donna]

Beauty's mom has 5 kids now!!   

[Donna]

Also, this was on the site of Gulf and Cathedral

For those who love bluebirds, the sight of a house sparrow eyeing a bluebird box is both maddening and frightening.

House sparrows are cavity nesters, just like bluebirds, but they are far more aggressive.  They are so territorial that they’ll claim multiple boxes and exclude all others from nesting even though they can’t possibly use them all. What’s worse is that male house sparrows will kill adult bluebirds inside the nest box and peck the chicks to death as part of this territorial behavior. 

Many are the sad stories of house sparrow attacks and dead baby bluebirds.  Beakless Bluebirds and Featherless Penguins by Sister Barbara Ann tells of the success she had in raising two beakless bluebirds who survived an attack thanks to her care.  Not everyone has the time or skill to do this.

As bluebird monitors will tell you, there is no real way to exclude house sparrows because they are nearly the same size as bluebirds.  The only effective method is to trap every house sparrow and remove it. It is illegal to trap native birds without a permit, but house sparrows are non-native and invasive.  They can be trapped and removed.

There are many Internet resources that explain how to do this.  Try the Bluebird Society of Pennsylvania and Sialis.org for starters.

Right now is bluebird nesting season.  It’s time to trap this house sparrow.

Hey you, House Sparrow!  Get away from that box!  Don’t you even think of it!

I didn't know this...wow, Sparrows are bad and there's so many of them.

[Donna]

Beauty's mom is feeding her 5 babies right now....so cute.

http://www.aviary.org/cons/falconcam_cl.php

[Donna]

And she's making sure all get fed...