Palemale, County M Red-tails, Sheepskin Pond Eagle Nest, Squirrel the Kitten, Doorstep Dove, Ravens, and Richard the III

 Pale Male observes his domain from a railing on the Linda Building photo

 courtesy of www.palemale.com/

Central Park observers report as is typical in February, Pale Male is twigging the nest and working on renovations to the nest for the coming season.  If this year is typical, copulation will begin soon.

 As there had been a massive wind storm and then repeated snow storms within the last few weeks,  I took the opportunity on Friday to check on the Sheepskin Pond Eagle nest.  Rimed with snow but still intact, if the eagle pair chooses their former nest,which they often will, it is waiting for them to return to with the thaw for another season.

And yet another good sign for Spring nest watching, many of you will remember the pair of Red-tailed Hawks who nested in the oak tree surrounded by a field not far off County M, I saw a pair circling above the former nesting area on Sunday. Fingers crossed.

Finally, my camera was at hand when Squirrel the Kitten climbed the patio door.

He gets his claws well dug in.

Then bats at something invisible to non-feline eyes or non-feline imagination.

Ah oh, he begins to slide. 

 Toenails screeching along the wood, he watches as he slides.

His ears flatten out but he doesn't give up the descending view.

His downward momentum increases...

Then he braces his feet, leaps off, and zips away.

On Sunday, Doorstep Dove, as she so often has done in the past, perched watching the sun disappear.  She saw me come to the window and we bobbed heads back and forth.  Then she went back to her watch and as usual flew off last of all the yard birds to roost for the night.  
 

Fascinating article on ravens making language gestures.

by way of Jackie of Oklahoma

http://magblog.audubon.org/ravens-know-how-make-point

Scientists have found that wild ravens make gestures, a feat even most primates can’t manage. What the birds are
 Saying, however, is anyone’s guess.

 Pointing is one of the simplest ways to communicate. In humans, hand gestures are seen as baby-steps in learning language. To some extent, science has long ignored the possibility that the handless members of the animal kingdom could be gesturing, too.

 But after two years observing ravens in the field, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology have spotted ravens doing exactly that. They’ve reported their discovery in Nature Communications.

 Raven gestures are targeted to members of the opposite sex and, like a well-timed wink, seem to be an effective way of getting attention. Specifically, the ravens use their beaks to point to or display nearby objects, including rocks, moss, or twigs.

 In an odd twist on more common bird behavior like gift giving, these objects are inedible and once a raven’s caught his partner’s attention, the birds don’t actually do anything with the materials.

 Scientists aren’t really sure what’s going on here. It could be a totally instinctive process, like a mating display, or it could be sophisticated symbolic signaling. Something like, “Did you remember to leave twigs on the nest today?”

 Regardless, the attention to objects is one more clue into the world view of crows and ravens, and—given their impressive tool use abilities—it suggests that like humans, theirs is a material world.

 For more on brainy birds, take a look at our Perch post pitting crows and parrots head to head.

AND They've finally found the remains of Richard the III under the pavement of a parking lot and yes he actually was a "hunchback".  At least Shakespeare is vindicated on that one if not on his personality.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?_r=0

My apologies for the lag in blogs of late, I'm having an erratic internet  connection.  Supposedly it is now fixed.  Fingers crossed on that as well.

Donegal Browne 

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM DOORSTEP DOVE, FRIEND!, and Pale Male Too

 Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com
Happy New Year from Pale Male, who has once started his renovations on the 927 Fifth Avenue nest for the upcoming season!
Happy New Year from Doorstep Dove...

Friend...

And the rest of the extended family!

At 2:08 this afternoon I looked out and saw Mourning Doves.  

A rare sight for the past couple of months.  And the two foraging in the feeding floor looked very like Doorstep and Friend.  I bobbed my head and Doorstep bobbed hers.   I was delighted and  flooded with relief.  

They were back!

They'd made it through the Wisconsin Mourning Dove hunting season, which ran from September 1st through November 9th this year, yet again!

The Wisconsin DNR website pertaining to Mourning Dove hunting season reports that the breeding population of Wisconsin Mourning Doves migrates out of Wisconsin as a flat fact.

Well most winters previous to the Dove hunting season that was started in Wisconsin a few winters ago, Doorstep and Friend were at the feeder on a daily basis.

Remember Doorstep got her name from snuggling up to the patio door during winter snow storms.

The DNR also says a fledgling Mourning Dove can do without her parent's care at less than a week off the nest.  This is patently untrue.

Do these state employees ever watch these birds in any detail?  Or are they just fabricating facts that are convenient? 

After Mourning Dove hunting season was implemented in Wisconsin they have often disappeared for months during the Fall and Winter.  Which is rather horrifying as one doesn't know if they've been shot or not while waiting out their absence.    

Below is a little of what the Humane Society of the United States has to say about Mourning Dove Hunting, and more states join the macabre slaughter every year, 41 states and counting, of more than 20 million Mourning Doves--

 "Mourning doves are the traditional bird of peace and a beloved backyard songbird. But some people use mourning doves as live targets, sometimes calling them "cheap skeet." Hunters kill more doves each year—more than 20 million—than any other animal in the country.

Doves are not overpopulated, and hunting them doesn't feed anyone or help manage wildlife. Mourning doves—called the "farmer's friend" because they eat weed seeds—pose no threat to crops, homes or anything of value to people.
Many hunters don't bother to retrieve the dead or wounded birds.
American kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks, and other federally protected birds look like doves and can be shot by mistake.
Mourning doves nest during the fall hunting season, and hunting can orphan chicks, who starve in the nest without their parents' care."
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/

Where Doorstep Dove, Friend and their extended family go, I don't know.  But I hope they keep going there.

And my wish for the New Year is that 
all the other Mourning Doves could find a safe place to go as well.

Shooting a Mourning Dove, a long lived bird who is our emblem of peace and nicknamed the "farmers friend" for their penchant for eating weed seeds, isn't  "sport" it is savagery.

Donegal Browne

Pale Male and Zena's Fledgling Assisted by Lincoln Karim, Doorstep Dove and Friends New Youngsters, Plus Isolde and Norman's Fledglings in Morningside Park

                    Photo by Jeffrey Johnson
Jeffrey Johnson, a contributor to the blog whom I met at the Wild New York City Symposium has a piece on author and original Pale Male watcher Marie Winn's Website about Lincoln and one of the Fifth Avenue fledglings.

http://mariewinnnaturenews.blogspot.com/

 
Doorstep Dove and Friend as I reported earlier have fledged three youngsters in this clutch.  Not extremely rare for Mourning Doves to lay three eggs but two eggs per clutch is the far more common number.

Here are photos of the two more mature fledglings.  The third who came off the nest slightly less mature is spending more time hiding in cover then flying except when she absolutely has to.  The other two tend to perch in sight, so we'll wait for a photo of number 3.

When I accidentally  flushed two of  Doorstep's Trio out of the garden, One took off toward the old TV antenna.

Two lifted off from the garden and came down on the short log wall that borders the yard's boundary from the park, about 12 feet away from me.  She looked at me and I at her.  She then bobbed her head at me and I bobbed back. We went back and forth  much as her mother had originally done as a first year bird though she was older as it was winter and she snuggled up to my patio door when it was cold.

  How old is Doorstep now?  I do believe we've been bobbing at each other for six years now.   

Perhaps this little dove will continue the tradition.

Photo by Rob Schmunk

And what about Isolde and Stormin' Norman's fledglings up at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine? 

 Needless to say, young Red-tails aren't the least bit popular with their bird neighbors, ever.  In  fact bird's scolding is a common way for watchers to find raptor fledglings but somehow the bird neighbors in Morningside Park have always seemed the loudest and most raucous when it comes to giving young Red-tails a piece of their mind   Check out Rob Schmunk's blog--

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

 

Happy Hawking

Donegal Browne

Pale Male and Zena, Osprey Cam Action, Doorstep Dove is FOUND, and Canada Goose Alert!

 Photo courtesy of http//www.palemale.com/
One of Pale Male and Zena's fledglings, watches for "prey", which includes rocks and twigs at this age, from behind a leaf.  Good thing, she's still getting the real thing from her parents.  Look at that bulging crop! 


Having raptor cam withdrawal in those spare moments in between updates,  now that most Red-tail eyasses have turned into fledglings?

Here is one I just discovered today.  AND as I've never watched Ospreys in the field, the learning curve is fascinating plus I have questions, questions, questions...

http://explore.org/#!/live-cams/player/live-osprey-cam
That's vigilant mom on the left and there are three eyasses napping in the bowl of the nest.

Dad shows up with a still flopping fish.

Mom gets fish and stops the flopping.  Dad keeps an eye peeled.

Mom pulls the fish up onto her handy dandy staging area/orange netting and starts working on the fish.  The eyasses begin to show some signs of life.

 Mom begins to feed and as the eyasses become more active it is apparent that ospreys have asynchronistic hatching.  The is a rather large size variation compared to Red-tails who's young most often hatch in a day of each other.  In this case they come in large, medium, and small.  Interestingly though Large and Medium were first up to be fed, before long Small managed to tumble Large back somehow in a scramble and got an even share.  Spunk counts.  Dad keeps watch.

Then dad is off as feeding continues.  Note Large is to the right of the perpendicular stick.  Medium is center above Small.  And Small, with the lighter feathers and open beak is about to get the next bite.


Here is one of my questions.  See the square item?  Follow  the perpendicular stick from the bottom of the photo up.  That looks like a rock but it appears to be placed on top of other nesting material.  I don't know that Ospreys carry rocks to their nest and in any case it would appear to be too heavy for them even if they did.  Perhaps a remnant of Styrofoam?

Next up Robin of Illinois also had a pair of mallards visit her feeder. Here's a recap--

About 5 years ago I had a mallard pair come to my yard and gardens, two years in a row. They would come in late April and come daily, and then disappear in mid-May. The second year, in early May, we had a tornado 1/4 mile from my house, and I've not seen the pair since. I hope they fled the area in advance of the storm. The second year a juvenile was often seen accompanying them. The first year, another male tried to steal Mrs Mallard away, and the males duked/dueled it out on the wide park-like area behind my house. I watched with bated breath and great fascination. By the way, the home team won.

I wasn't the only one who was fascinated and delighted with them. Neighbors would watch out their windows, slow their cars as they passed my yard if the ducks were in it, and sometimes sneak around in the bushes furtively to watch them as well.

Doorstep Mourning Dove finally appears again!

I admit it. I was worried.  Yes I know it's nesting season and hens have to stick to the nest pretty closely but I hadn't seen Doorstep for weeks and weeks.  Then the other day, after I'd seen a clutch of three newly fledged Mourning Doves being herded into the Big Nest by Friend and then I saw Friend, Doorstep's mate sitting on the bird bath watching the sunset without her--  I really got worried.  Yes she'd likely be laying a new clutch but ordinarily she helps Friend for a day or two with the youngsters before beginning to sit again.

Then I looked out on the feeding floor and saw a petite Mourning Dove with a slight ruffle to her posterior feathers pecking away.  Poor thing she's practically sleeping on her feet.

She heard the camera and looked up completely aware.  I bobbed my head.  She bobbed back...  It IS her!!!!  Alive and well.

 And then she went back to eating with her eyes at half mast.  Raising a threesome can really take it out of a girl. 

ALERT!!
Once again this year Canada Geese will be rounded up in New York City's Parks and killed.  The USDA chooses this time of year because Canadian Geese are at their most vulnerable.  They are in molt, often flightless, and have goslings.    Beyond planned protests, Goose Watch needs you to help document these activities.
http://www.goosewatchnyc.com/

Hatch at the Cathedral! Pale Male, a Leucistic Grackle and a Saturday Miscellany

 Photo by Rob Schmunk  

 FROM ROB SCHMUNK UP AT THE CATHEDRAL NEST OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE--

"It looks like a definite hatch at the red-tailed hawk nest at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. On Tuesday we saw the "concerned staring at the bottom of the nest" which often suggests a hatch in progress, and today it seems confirmed by Isolde spending 12-13 minutes leaning into the nest in fairly obvious feeding behavior."

For more on the beautiful Isolde (right) and the energetic Stormin' Norman (left), click on Rob's blog link below

http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/

 Photo courtesy of http://www.palemale.com/

Pale Male still a Dad-in-waiting, takes off on the hunt.

 Photo Donegal Browne
The  leucistic Grackle finally obliged to have her photograph taken albeit in the rain.  Note just below the white on her neck she has a bit of the standard Grackle  iridescence .

                  Do you notice anything unusual about this bush?

If you look very very closely in person you can see Doorstep, the Mourning Dove, keeping an eye peeled through the evergreen twigs.  At least I think it is Doorstep, as she didn't flush out when she was spied and returned my head bob.

 And for you wildflower buffs, can you name this flower?

And how about this one?   It's sepals close late in the day.

A grumpy Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia, paid a visit.

 A White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis, stared.

Then scrutinized.

Then finally, with his beady eyes glued to mine, decided it was okay to get down to eating.

In the meantime his cohort a tan striped form of the White-throated Sparrow refused to even look my way.  According to the research the females of this species prefer his looks to the white striped version.

And last but not least, who built this nest?  It is approximately three feet from the ground.  Thus far I haven't seen anyone in it.

Donegal Browne

Blakeman on the Unusual Tail Markings of Pale Male's Mate Zena and It Must Be Spring as Everyone Is Back For at Least a Cameo Apperance

                                                               Crop of original photo (see next post down) courtesy of palemale.com

 Ohio Red-tailed Hawk maven John Blakeman on the possible reasons that the tail of Pale Male's mate Zena has unusual markings and is missing some of the "normal" ones--

 

Donna,

 

The horizontal stripe on Zena's tail feather is known as a "hunger trace." It can occur for two reasons. Most often, especially in eyasses (seen in immature hawks, before they have molted to adult plumage in their second summers), hunger traces are from actual hunger, periods of time when the eyass failed to eat enough food to fully grow emerging feathers while on the nest.

 

Feathers are pure protein. An eyass going a day or longer without food will have hunger traces in all developing feathers. Most eyasses have minor, insignificant hunger traces in just the smaller parts of the feathers, not the quills. These are insignificant.

 

But a strong hunger trace that creates a weakness in the shaft of the feather is ominous. The feather is weak and can later break off. The hawk cannot recover from this and will not be able to fly. It will starve.

 

The second cause---perhaps---is a fright response to lightning in thunderstorms. You can imagine, perhaps, the sounds, heat, and light when a lightning bolt strikes a nearby tree. Hunger traces are clearly caused by hunger, but perhaps also by lightning-induced fright.

 

Zena's hunger trace has not caused any problems, as the entire tail feather remains intact and fully functional.

 

In haggards (adults), hunger traces occur only on the feathers developing at the time the trace occurs, which, then, is only in a few flight feathers. A two-day strong rain and storm period could keep the bird from eating. Or, a lightning strike in a roost-tree in August might cause the trace.

 

The lack of a dark band near the end of some of the feathers is a not uncommon plumage variance. The band, across all the tail feathers, is called the sub-terminal band. But a small percentage of red-tail simply have only portions of it, or it's absent altogether. It's absence creates no problems.

 

--John Blakeman

 

Many thanks John, I had no idea what might have caused the aberrations in Zena's tail!

It's that time of year again when the feeding area becomes quite crowded with returning residents and visitors on their way through-and everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else.  Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel fresh from her burrow meets the beady eyed gaze of a male Dark-eyed Junco. 

Doorstep accompanied by friend both keep an eye on the newly returned female Dark-eyed Junco.  Three female Juncos held out for most of the winter until fed up with the rude behavior of the males of their species during the few bouts of snow, took off for an all girl trip further south.

Note that the feathers on Doorstep Dove's back still remain half raised and have ever since her interaction with the Cooper's Hawk.  Possible nerve damage?  Whatever the case it doesn't seem to have diminished her capabilities one whit.

 Pyewacket the cat, alert at the door, meets the stare of a male House Finch.  Neither gave an inch.

 The Grackle, accompanied by the ground feeding and ever vigilant House Sparrows, having been thwarted by the weight bar on the mixed seed feeder avails herself of the hordes of seed she spilled on the ground as she pumped the bar up and down with her repeated attempts to fool it.

 I looked out the the door and who should be staring back while perpendicular to the goodie stump with the use of her handy rigid woodpecker tail feathers but a Northern Yellow Shafted Flicker.

Here's a look at the splash of red on her head.

 

Note the glimpse of yellow on the rear edge of her feathers.

And when it comes to staring the Common Grackle's yellow, and I admit even at human size, scary eyes take the top prize for potent looks.

Donegal Browne