Thursday, December 01, 2011

UPDATE!!! Violet of Washington Square


Photo by Peter Radley
A Violet of Washington Square Park update from Francois Portmann by way of Peter Radley--

Hi All,
Just received this from Peter Radley who volunteers time at Marble cemetery on 2nd street,
See below, it looks like WSP Violet, the pic is low-rez but it looks like a band on the right leg!
Greetings
francois


Now the note from Peter Radley--

Friends,
I heard about the Red Tail that was filmed at NYU
this past breeding season had been seen with a broken leg. Well,
I was at the Marble Cemetery around noon today and I
could here 3 crows making all kind of noise. Well, to my
surprise I saw this Red Tail on the ground eating or trying
to while being bombed by the crows.

As I looked closer I could see that the right leg was broken.
Heart breaking! It was having a hard time trying to stand
and eat.

peter.

(It isn't exactly clear if Vi's leg is completely broken or ligated and lifeless or both. DB)

Photo by Peter Radley
It was a fresh kill, I took that PIC later after the
crows had finally chased the Red Tail out of the Cemetery.

Well, it can still hunt but who knows how long it will keep
going?

Peter

Nest, an Oddity--
The following link was sent to me but I'm not exactly sure what the point of this is and it makes me a bit uneasy. These are falconry birds and the raptor in the film is a Harris Hawk. One of the few raptor species known for coordinated efforts with others, though a number of hawk watchers have reported coordinated efforts between the individual birds in a Red-tail pair of long standing.
http://www.parahawkusa.com/Home.html

Donegal Browne

7 comments:

Karen Anne said...

I know that it is not the same thing, since hawks need their legs to catch prey, but there is a nearly effectively one legged mourning dove whom I have seen off and on on my deck since January 2011, including through some bad storms.

My vet friend tells me it is not unusual for (I forget exactly, since we talked about this some time ago) an infection to cripple a leg joint and the dove to survive. She has gotten better at moving with nearly no help from that leg.

Of course, she is eating seeds, not catching prey.

Here she is, last January:

dove

Karen Anne said...

p.s. Of course, the dove doesn't have the ongoing problem of that d* band.

Anonymous said...

No, these are not "falconry" birds. Sitting around in an open aircraft with an attached hawk is not falconry in any manner.

Falconry, as regulated by federal and state governments, is the hunting of game by a trained falconer's licensed hawk or falcon.

This is unrelated to falconry in any way. It's unrelated to raptor biology in any way. It's almost unrelated to reality.

--John Blakeman

Anonymous said...

I have followed Violet for a very, long time and do not believe this picture of a hawk is Violet. The feather pattern on the back is totally different from that of Vi's.

Anonymous said...

So curious why so many comments are not being made public. A few people have written to let all know this pic was not that of Violet, but I'm not able to view their responses---curious!

Donegal Browne said...

Hi John,

I find it most strange myself. Perhaps I should have called them trained raptors. But for exactly what is rather hard to categorize. Movie tricks? I wonder what kind of licenses their owners hold.

Karen Anne said...

My apologies about the non-existent dove picture. I just found out Cox did away with its web storage for members feature last Tuesday without notifying members.