7:00PM Fledgling in a tree behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
7:00 PM Fledgling on the roof of the Met.
7:01 PM The back view.
7:03 PM Back again with focus on possible prey.
7:28 PM Second fledgling hunting. (Look at that full crop!)
7:50 PM Pale Male hunting on the Bridle Path.
8:04PM Pale Male, the Monarch of Central Park, surveys the Bridle Path.
Many thanks to Stella for stalking Pale Male and Company!
Next up The World of Milkweed
According to Betty Jo of California, who told us her Milkweed growing experiences, she too has the same red beetles in her Milkweed in California and that Milkweed has it's own ecosystem. So today I decided to look a little closer.
And there are those red beetles, well a pair of those beetles anyway copulating, again on the Milkweed. Then I asked myself are they really copulating or ...are they doing something else. I looked it up. Yup that's copulation for certain kinds of insects-the male and female gentalia come into contact, put rather superficially.
First off there are ordinarily some courtship rituals. The male may wiggle his antenna in a fetching manner or stroke and nibble the females legs or maybe even vibrate his genitalia to stimulate her. When she is receptive, the male's aedeagus extends from his abdomen. That's part one. Part two the "penis" telescopes out of that and goes deep into the female's reproductive system where it deposits sperm.
After photographing the copulating beetles, I continued by investigation and BINGO, I found some eggs. Well, they look like possible eggs. Of course I can't be positive these are beetle eggs or even eggs at all. Though I've been seeing pairs of red beetles copulating on the milkweed for some weeks so they could conceivably be red beetle eggs.
Then I see an ant with the eggs. Ant eggs? Unless ants tend eggs by biting them which seems unusual I'd say this ant is predating the eggs.
Yet another level of activity.
About then, I see a particularly offensive clump of crabgrass in the unmulched area. I walk over and give it a big tug...and what do I see?
In the middle of a line of ubiquitous Chinese Elm seedlings is TA DA, a Milkweed seedling.
I glance up at the house and wonder about the little bat colony under the eaves. For the last several nights I've been trying to see them fly out so I could count them. Nothing has happened. I stand here with a camera and nothing happens.
Now I've watched several fly outs from attics of hundreds of bats who seemed to care less that people were watching but as it turns out some colonies care very much. And mine was one of them. They appear to have moved. I read today that if you have a bat house, mine arrived today, you shouldn't look at it for more than a few seconds at a time or the bats might move. Well these guys didn't even wait for the bat house stare. Sigh.
Though later, at 8:45 PM, fly out time, while I was watering, I glanced up and saw a couple of bats fly over the house, right to left. It appears that the bats didn't exactly move, they've just shifted their exit to the other side of the house. No, I did not stare at the flying bats. Though they probably don't mind as much when you haven't seen them exit...at least I hope not.
We'll see what tomorrow brings...as always.
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
The mature Common Milkweed I transplanted is coming along. See the coming blossoms center? Also a couple of interesting insects...
So far so good. Which is more than I can see for my efforts to catch the small bat colony which resides somewhere on or in my house at fly out.
Not a bat in sight though I thought I was watching all the time...okay most of the time, as I got an important text, perhaps at the exact moment I should have been watching.
This is the area under the eaves that the other bats appeared to be coming from on Little Brown Bat fly out night. It is in inky darkness at fly out time so I just periodically and blindly took a picture, and later brought up the image in the photo program with hope to have caught something...which I didn't...yet anyway.
And a very nice tidbit from Central Park Hawk Watcher Stella Hamilton. Bugsy the fledgling of Pale Male and Octavia, who was notorious for eating bugs earlier in his fledglinghood actually brought down a squirrel today on her own! Squirrels being no easy prey as they have extremely tough, hard to puncture skin and very sharp teeth. Bugsy as it turns out is quite precocious.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
SO...YOU THINK YOU WANT A PARROT?
Yes Ladies and Gentleman Quicksilver the African Grey Parrot ran amuck while I napped having inadvertently fallen asleep with the parrot at large in the house.
In the past this hasn't been a problem as Silver didn't, for whatever reason, go into the kitchen on his own. Well this day he obviously did and when he heard my footsteps approaching from the other side of the house, I heard a little parrot voice saying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
At the sound, I was filled with dread. It has to be something really egregious before Silver apologizes before I even appear on the scene.
Note the pile of lime jello on the stove top and a smaller pile of lemon on the counter. Silver was standing between them apologizing with bits of teabag clinging to his chest. The dog was snacking on the coffee cake on the floor and Squirrel the Cat was sitting on the counter, left, hoping for Silver to dispense something he'd like very soon.
Therefore think very carefully about your patience level and how much you can take before the lifelong decision of a very smart feathered friend who cannot help but open the cupboard when you're distracted, chunk things out and chew them.
But as the pet is a parrot, at least he apologized...in English.
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
2:12 PM When we last saw Little Brown Bat he was climbing the house, I assume so he could get out of the too hot sun and away from me. Look at his beautiful eye.
2:12:06 PM Much closer to the eaves and shade now.
2:12:09 PM He gets his right foot up next to a right
finger and PULLS!
2:12:25 PM And he's made it round the corner.
2:12:35 PM See him way way up there next to the eave spout? And he made the whole climb in less than 2 minutes.
2:12:45 PM What is Little Bat doing now?
2:12:51 PM Little Brown Bat is TURNING!
Keep in mind the whole time he is doing all this...
...I'm down here. I'm seeing him move but that's about all. I've been cropping down the previous photos in a huge way to see what he's doing.
2:14:09 PM Now what?
2:14:30 PM No more wiggling that I can see from the ground.
At this point I decide that Little Bat might like his own bat bath close by...just in case. And while I was at it, decided to grab my other camera that has a longer lens and maybe I could see what Little Bat was doing up there in the moment.
2:16:25 PM Looks like he's sleeping quite peacefully.
3:34:24 PM Still sleeping, but he's moved a little higher on the wall.
7:24:01 PM Crapola! Where did he go?
7:24:24 PM There he IS! Around the corner sleeping in the late day sun.
7:24:59 PM Out of the corner of my eye I see a very big bird fly by and swing the camera up.
A horrible picture but good enough for an identification. Little Brown Bat and I had a mature Bald Eagle fly over us.
7:30:51 PM Look how protuberant Little Bat's eyes are under his eyelids.
8:31:40 PM Good grief! Now where?
8:32:09 PM Ah! Around the corner masked by the eaves spout...he's moving.
8:32:14 PM Finger stretching down
8:32:19 PM Ah Oh! Little Bat is moving again. I begin to wonder if the click from the camera, the auto focus bouncing, or just my mere presence gets him going.
8:32:46 PM And around the corner he goes.
8:52:59 PM See him up there hanging by his feet in the corner? Then the big surprise...another bat comes whipping out of the opposite corner of the roof on that wall. WOW! Has to be a hole up there somewhere.
8:54:27PM Another one! But they're too fast for the camera in this light to nab them.
8:55:02PM I hear faint scratching and chittering but still can't catch the other bats with the camera.
8:57:12 PM Little Brown Bat stretches out his wings but still doesn't fly out.
9:00:26 PM Little Bat starts crawling right. More metallic scratching noises and chittering from the other bats, likely less than a dozen, making their way out of where ever they are
9:04:21 PM And then he was GONE! One or two more bats came from the secret exit and they were done flying out to eat their 6000 mosquitoes per hour. I didn't get a good count of the new bats but let's say conservatively that there were 10 and that they eat mosquitoes for 8 hours...that's 480,000 mosquitoes.
Glad I'd already ordered a 20 bat, bat house for Little Brown Bat. He can invite a few more of his friends for daytime sleepovers.
Donegal Browne
6:52PM Beauty mark on chest.
Now isn't that fascinating a single dark brown feather? Great ID mark if it remains.
6:55PM Foraging along Fifth Avenue.
Is that the same dark spot on the chest? Is it a dent, a dark feather, or part of lunch?
6:58PM More grub
7:55PM Pale Male roosts on Jackie Os
7:57PM More Pale Male
Part 3 of Sick Little Brown Bat
1:11 PM When last we saw Little Brown Bat he'd disappeared off the top of the bird house and then reappeared head first from behind the bird house. Now he's shifting so his head is down.
1:11:38PM He's scrabbling with his right foot attempting to get purchase on the wood. He seems to be feeling much better after water and food. I begin to wonder if with the trees missing from the storm reducing the shade exponentially and my inadvertent pulling of the weeds in the flower bed whether little bat is getting too hot in his roost these days.
1:15 PM Then he looks to be itching his side with the other foot and gets a lower position for that foot.
1:16 PM Then bat appears to be sleeping.
5:39 PM Four hours later and he's still sleeping and he hasn't crawled onto the bird house looking unwell. Water and food available.
5:40PM Did he shift a little?
5:57PM I bring him a piece of orange in case he likes fruit and he's lowered himself down behind the house.
6:04 PM He appears to be even lower.
6:15PM I continue to monitor but he remains asleep.
6:16PM Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrives and sits on a branch.
His head shifts slightly. He's watching something.
Yup. And he's watching something that flies.
And off it goes to the south.
6:33PM He's still sleeping peacefully.
7:26PM He's still there napping. I suspect he'll fly out at about 9PM.
8:11PM See the dark spot? He's still there.
9:03PM Too dark now for pictures. He's still sleeping
10:00PM Can't see if he is there or not.
Morning....he's gone!
Well he did fly out and I suspect that now that he feels better he's chosen a new more hospitable roost.
Bon voyage Little Brown Bat! Take care of yourself!
Donegal Browne
