Fun with Birds around the Web

Fun stuff and beautiful footage of birds.

From Arkive: a short video of a red-tailed hawk nest from hatching to fledge, in high-def. Click here to view.

A "trailer" of a program on Birds of Paradise, a research project by the Cornell Lab, filmed in the remote rainforests of New Guinea. Click here to view.

The full length show from Nat Geo, Winged Seduction: Birds of Paradise, is here.

What State Birds Should Be is a somewhat humorous look at the unimaginative designation of state birds from Slate Magazine. (Seven cardinals, but no hawks? Come on!) Click here to read.

A Child's Wild Kingdom

In the New York Times Sunday Review, Jon Modallem explores how our culture connects kids and wild creatures. He cites Edward O. Wilson's theory of "biophiia" — a theory that human beings are inherently tuned to other life-forms. As children grow up, the animal connection seems to recede. Are we hawkwatchers tuning into our inner child? Click here to read.

A Different Kind of Smart

An interesting article from Science News on animal cognition. Click here to read. 

(Wow ... a related "experiment" going on here! As I was posting this, I heard rather loud noises outside. (Some animal...I thought perhaps a squirrel... had recently figured out how to knock over the locking garbage tin where I keep my bird seed. My defense strategy: I put the tin in a large plastic pot that was wide and low, so that the tin can rock, but not be knocked over onto the stone patio. I also placed two large rocks on the top, on either side of the handle that locks the lid in place.) So, I heard these noises and figured I've caught the thief going after the seed. I peeked out my door and saw a raccoon wrestling with the tin. S/he had knocked off the rocks. But so far, has not figured out how to tip the tin over! To be continued ..... can the raccoon figure a way around my defenses?

And then there were three ....

Soon there will be three new chicks at the Franklin Institute.

Two hatched today, one early and one late. And according to reports, the third has pipped and may hatch in the morning. Amazing! That's really close together!

Here is a pic I took late afternoon ... New baby lifting head, huge pip in second, and Mom who had just flown in with food for her new, suddenly huge, brood.

Ezra Protects Big Red

I captured an unusual sight at the Cornell nest yesterday. It started to hail and rain. Ezra, who was on the nest, walked over to Big Red (sitting on her brood, including an hours-old eyass), and sheltered her for the entire storm. Amazing! Click here to see a short video of it.

And here is a video of the WSP kids in various cute poses. At about 3 minutes in, however, I caught the hatching of the 3rd eyass at Cornell. It's also a bit unusual because D1 was "biting" her sib, D2, and the newly emerging red-tail.

Comic(al) Birds

S_Marie (PipSquawk) shared this comic she created about the NYU Hawks and their messy nest. Very cute and clever. Click here to read it.

Cornell RTH Hatch video

Neat video showing newly hatched eyass and emerging eyass. Click here to view.
And a photo of the two with their egg teeth. Click here.