More nest updates

Peace and Harmony have either fledged or are practicing advanced branching. Read the blog at http://mnbound.com/bald-eagle-blog/

Sad news at the Franklin Institute. The female hawk crashed into a window and died. Read Sunny's blog at http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

Not a lot of news on our WSP fledglings. Roger_Paw has some great pics from July 8. Bruce Yolton (Urban Hawks) has not been to the park much.

The sea eagles’ nest in the Sydney Olympic Park, which Paula introduced us to two years ago, is back in action! The first egg was laid on July 6 and the second on July 9. Watch the sea eagles here (pop-out view): http://www.ustream.tv/seaeagles/pop-out . Or at the Sea Eagle cam site, which hosts the chat, here: http://www.sea-eaglecam.org/video.html


My eastern phoebes have fledged!
Did not get to see any of them make the leap. :-(
Hope they are doing well.

And also back: The Decorah eagles have fledged from their new nest, but are branching in the cottonwood that houses their old nest! Link is listed at the right.


And now for something completely different! Just found a Coopers Hawk nest cam (from Canada). View it here: http://www.livestream.com/coopershawkwebcam?utm_source=website-channel-page&amp

Eastern Phoebe nest update

About a month I ago, I chatted about a nest under the deck of my house, which has been there for at least 10 years, being washed out by the heavy spring rains. The eastern phoebe who built it lost 3 very young chicks. I reinforced the support under the nest and gave her a copper roof to prevent the rain from getting to her nest. She rebuilt in a jiffy and I believe has a new brood! (click on the pics to enlarge)

It's very dark up under the deck where the nest is ... peering up there the past few days I thought I saw one beak. Today, I went down to the basement door, camera in hand, with flash engaged. Imagine my surprise when I downloaded these pics and saw four babies!! Phoebe is awesome. She was quite mad that I was near her nest. (And I hope I didn't freak out the babes too much.) I calmed her down by sprinkling some mealworms between the bushes behind "her" bench in the garden. I love to watch her grab them up, fly up to the bench to check for intruders, and then fly into the nest.

Two nest updates

The Calgary falcons have fledged! Only a little more than 2 weeks after their banding ordeal (they are pictured here getting a meal soon after the trauma), one left the nest on July 2 in the evening, and the other two followed sometime in the morning on July 3.

As of yesterday (July 5), Peace and Harmony are still residing at the MN Bound nest, spending much of their time up on the tree trunk near the camera mount. In the late afternoon, Dad brought a fish, and the two eaglets returned to the nest bowl to tussle over the food.

Keeping Up with the Birds

Okay, I have to have one of these! Read “Twigitecture: Building
Human Nests” in the NYT. Click here.

Jayson Fann, a nest maker, artist and musician, has built
some 30-odd nests. Three are in Big Sur, including a
meditation nest at the Post Ranch Inn. Photo by
Drew Kelly for The New York Times

Another Season of the WSP Hawk Cam Is Over

NYU has dismantled the cam for the season. Id3Ego2 has a rerun playing and will work to show videos or a slideshow instead of the dreaded rainbow bars.

In the meantime, please sign a "virtual thank-you card" that I created. http://bit.ly/13KUYrg

Animal Sex: The Cloacal Kiss — and the Snapping Turtle

In “The Sex Life of Birds, and Why It’s Important,” appearing in The New York Times Science section on 6/6/13, Carl Zimmer says research on the vanishing bird penis is important. Click here to read.

Meanwhile, at GhentArt’s “wildlife preserve,” another interesting animal reproductive event is taking place. A snapping turtle has decided that my gardens are a good place to lay her eggs. I discovered that these turtles will venture over a mile to find a suitable spot to lay; my garden is about 150 yards from a pond across the street and 300 yards from a pond behind my property. I also learned that female snapping turtles have a special duct that can keep sperm alive for up to three years, which allows them  to fertilize their eggs at any time, with or without mating. They lay up to 80 eggs at a time! Perhaps I'll have a bale of turtles heading to one of the ponds in nine to 18 weeks.

All Three Kids Have Left the Nest at Bobst

Rosie & Bobby's kids all made the leap from the ledge last weekend. Keep up with reports from the ground (and find videos and photos) on the google docs page at http://bit.ly/11pafiO

Kiku left Friday morning, 5/31/13 st 10:34 a.m. Video is here and here (more vids on the google doc page, too). 

Judson left before first full light on Sunday morning, 6/2/13 at 5:23 a.m. It seemed no cameras were rolling at the time. But a chatter stepped forward and said she was trying out her recording software for the first time that morning, set it up to record, and then left on a walk. Annalia relates that she “kept waiting for another video to surface, never imagining that hers would be the only documentation of Jud's big moment.”
Her recording can be found here.  

Archie was the last to go on Sunday afternoon, 6/2/13 at 6:03 p.m. Watch it here