T2 the Valiant Tiercel Who Flew In To Help Raise Franklin Mom's Eyasses Mid-Season When Her Mate Died Two Seasons Ago Has Now Passed Himself

T2 Photo courtesy of Dinko Mitic  

FROM HAWKWATCH AT THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE--

We heard the saddest news today. Earlier this week, Amtrak workers in the train yards near 30th Street station found a dead hawk on the tracks. Because T2 has not been seen since last Sunday, it seems highly likely that this hawk was T2. 

It is easy to imagine that he was on a fast hunting run, eyes totally focused on his prey, flying low over the tracks just as a train was coming. This is how Dad was hit by a truck two years ago on the 30th Street off-ramp.

MORE- http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

T2  shall be sorely missed.


Parasitism of Crow Nests by Cuckoos Can Be Helpful for Crow Families???

I've always found the parasitism of nests pretty depressing actually but.... 
Robin of Illinois sent in a fascinating factoid from The Times of London, in which scientists, after a 16 year study, found that Crow families whose nests are parasitized by Cuckoos have a better chance of survival.

 Seems rather counter intuitive doesn't it?

  But as it turns out Cuckoo chicks let off a nasty rotten meat smell when threatened which may keep the nest safe from marauders such as cats.

Who knew? 

Pale Male and Octavia Sky Dance and The Very Hungry Crow

Photo http://www.palemale.com/

Pale Male (up left), and Octavia are doing a little sky dancing or more properly, they are performing courtship flights, these days.  And the way one can tell if copulation is happening (no word from the ground on that yet) or soon copulation will be is that they begin to hang their talons down as they fly.  See Octavia's legs?  Not tucked up as they usually are during flight.  It won't be long now!

THE COLD, HUNGRY CROW

Earlier today I looked out the window toward the feeders and there was a Crow standing on the privacy fence.  She didn't look good.. Her feathers were more puffed up than the other Crows and she was squatting a little so her feathers covered her feet slightly.  But the biggest thing was that she looked right at me and instead of taking off to a higher perch as is normal for Crows, a suspicious species,  she just stared at me.

I flashed back on a conversation I had yesterday. I'd been talking to one of the local rehabbers and she said this time of year is what she calls "the dying time".  It is particularly the case this winter as the temperatures are single digits or below zero almost constantly, the snow is very deep, so overwintering creatures have depleted their fat reserves and there is yet no end in sight of  deep winter..

She looked BAD.

I looked around for something to grab quickly so I could immediately go and put it out on the goodie stump.  I grabbed my coat,  a stale bisquit, and the tail end of a loaf of raisin bread and headed out the back door.  When I turned the corner she was still there.  I held my hands out so she could see I had food.  Her two companions, remember a Crow foraging party tends to be three birds, had taken off just as I came around the house.  I got half way to her before she finally flew up into the Pondorosa Pine.  I watched her go but she stumbled when she made to land on the branch.  Another bad sign.

I broke up what I had and laid it on the slat on the fence instead of the stump so it would be easier for her to get.

I purposely didn't open the curtains or look out the window to watch as I wanted the weak Crow to be comfortable getting the food as soon as possible.  I got on with other things.

A while later I went to the laundry room and  looked out the curtain covered window to check if the food was gone.

The food was gone and the Crow was back sitting on the fence.

She obviously sees me but doesn't flush off the fence. Unusual.  

Oh no!  

They hadn't had enough in this bitter weather.  

Time to get out the big guns and something more nutritious than bread with raisins in it.

Time to raid the fridge for the good stuff. 

If it were me what would I want.  I rummaged.  Ah ha!  I'd made homemade beef stew some days ago and there was some left.  Actually with fragmented food you aren't really supposed to eat it after three days.  Perfect excuse to share.

Out it came.  I stuck it in the microwave to take the chill off and headed out the back door.

When she saw me instead of flying up into the pine she just flew a few feet over onto the top branch of the Sparrow Pile.  A squirrel had taken refuge there as well and she pecked at him when he tried to get on her skinny branch which likely would have dumped both of them.

 She watches.  Alert.  But she is sticking to the branch and not flying away.  I'm really quite close.  I spoon the stew out onto the slate of snow covered wood that holds up the suet feeder. It  is right below where she had been previously perched.  I turn and head back to the house, then throw my coat off and head for the appropriate windows.  

Drat!  I hadn't opened the curtains even yet.  This will spook her.

I pull the curtains back

By the time I get to the laundry room she is leaning forward looking at the stew.  It will be the chunks of meat that she is craving.  She sees me and sticks.

One foot tucked up in her belly feathers for warmth, she stares at the stew.  

I hope she soon feels comfortable enough to fly over and eat.  I don't detect the other Crows.  Interesting.  They are letting her go first twice.

I turn and walk from the laundry room.  I don't try to spy on her from other windows; I busy myself with other things.

12 minutes later when I peer out the laundry room window, every speck of meat is gone and there had been numerous large chunks.

The potatoes and carrots remain.  Good.  She's had enough and no fear the remainder will go to waste.  Not in this weather. Someone who needs  the calories will eat it.

Well kind readers, I'd meant to put Part 3 of the Eagle search up tonight but as it is 5am.  Part 3 is best left for Saturday.

Just in time to finish that part of the saga so I can go looking for Eagles again on this Sunday too.

Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne







.

A Miscelleny and a Culprit

2013-11-11

These are a few of  the mean House Sparrows.   

For whatever reason this flock of sparrows seems much more aggressive to other birds than I've seen other flocks behave at other feeders.  They jump at the juncos, they gang up on the Goldfinch, and they even manage to chase away the White-breasted Nuthatch.  

Nuthatch are not known to be timid birds.  In fact they can be downright hostile if another bird gets between them and the sunflower seed they have an eye on.

I begin to notice that the male House Sparrows appear to sit atop the fence or the sparrow pile being hyper-vigilant most of the time.

 Females tend to eat in protected spaces.  (It isn't that it happens to be snowing slightly this day. ) Ordinarily, as many of you know, when it snows feeders will be mobbed by many species, stocking up calories for a cold moist roost.

It just wasn't happening.

2013-11-13  

Two days later, on the 13th,  the only bird I see is Silver guarding the white chest of drawers looking territorial  and contemplating flying at my head.  

Digression Alert!  Silver is so intent on playing guard dog he won't even get a drink of water out of his own bowls  which are in other rooms.  Rather he flies down to the floor, drinks out of the cat bowl, and flies back up to the top of the dresser and waits for the interloper. 

 Me.

One would think that birds don't have much in the way of expressions, their "lips" don't move, right? But they do have expressions.  Look carefully at Silver.  His expressions are expressed with the shape of his eyes at any given moment, his body language and the position of his feathers.

Silver is giving me his "make my day" expression.  

Can you see it?

Back to the issue--The feeders have remained empty.  The Squirrels aren't scolding.  I begin to suspect that there is a hawk skulking out there somewhere. 

 2013-11-15, 12:26 PM

 I hear a Crow calling.  I look outside from the first floor and can't see anything but a male House Sparrow on top of the Sparrow Pile. (photo left) I run up the stairs and there is a Crow delving for insects in the mulch.  

Is the sentinel Crow in the Pondorosa Pine?  Note the shadow of the pines,  right.  I switch rooms and windows.

 Yes.  She's there.  She looks straight at me and doesn't move or call the alert.  

I've been attempting to get the Crows to call me when they arrive.  I run back down the stairs, grab some whole wheat bread in the kitchen, and head outside.

When I come into the Sentinel Crow's view I stop and hold the bread in the air for her to see.  I walk over to the little shelf by the feeders and deposit the bread.  It appears they weren't interested in the beans I'd put out earlier.  Then I walk purposefully into the house without looking  back.

12:29:35 PM  I run back up the stairs and wait.  Looking down I once again notice how much closer the Sparrow Pile is to the feeders here than it was in Milton.  Wait.  Are the Sparrows being more hostile due to some territorial issue due to proximity?

12:30:30 PM  A Crow lands, checks out the bread, and takes a fragment.  Part of which falls to the ground. 

12:30:34 PM  Another piece of bread is pushed into the beak.

12:30:37 PM  She then goes for  a third piece in his beak.

12:30:42 PM  That done, Crow stares up at  me for several seconds and then flies off  photo left, West.

Crow only gets a few feet before half the bread falls into the wood pile.   I can't get a picture because she is directly below me.  I press my head to the glass.  She methodically retrieves the bread.  Looks back up again and then continues her flight in the original direction.

 12:31:07 PM   Position may be the impetus for the Sparrow problem.  The only way to find out is to move it.

Fast forward to 11-28.  The only species sighted were 2 House Sparrows on the top of the Sparrow Pile much earlier in the day. 

12:40PM  I  grab the full trash bag, and go outside to put it in the bin.  Just as I pass the garage, bringing the feeding area into view, a Cooper's hawk bursts into the air, possibly from the feeding area or maybe from atop the Sparrow Pile.  The hawk heads  across the yard toward the corner of the block. 

Drat!  I don't have the camera.  Where did she go?  I can't see her!

I fling down the trash, run into the house,  grab the camera, and run up the stairs.

 And the culprit is found!  She's sitting in the Chinese Elm on the corner, scanning.  I hit rapid fire on the camera, her head turns toward me and she's in the air flying north through the treeline of Spruce.

 And she's gone.  

But I've got her number now.

Happy Hawking 

Donegal Browne

Maynard the Unflighted Fledgling Crow Has An Adventure

Maynard the unflighted fledgling Crow on July 20th at 7:31 PM looking a little worse for wear but much better than he looked earlier in the day.

But lets rewind a number of hours in this particular day.

It was 90 plus degrees, the corn in the fields was so dry it was whorling and there wasn't a hint of a breeze.  I was walking down the  sidewalk on my way to the store when I saw a large bird with limp posture in the shade of a Maple across the street in the Methodist Church's large yard.

Hmmm.  Young Crow?

Indeed, and without much in the way of flight feathers or a tail either.  Getting closer I saw that his eyes looked filmy and he just didn't look good.  And even  though I was in a few feet of him, there were no Crows  in the trees screaming at me to leave him alone.  No extended family minders.  Bad sign.

I advance on young Crow who rather half halfheartedly gambols away.  I don't want to exhaust him with a chase, or leap at him for a grab, but I don't have anything to throw over him.  

About then I notice some sort of workman holding a big green plastic bucket and wearing one of those blaze orange net don't-hit-me-with-your-car alert vests standing on the sidewalk staring at me.

All you can do is ask, right?

"Excuse me, Sir. Could I borrow your vest for a moment to throw over this bird so I can catch him?"

After a quick explanation, the guy who turns out to be named Mike and is obviously a good sport, throws the vest over the Crow himself. I get Crow out of the vest and his bones feel too sharp...mouth and eyes look dry.  Dehydration. 

Mike then says, "Where are you going with him?"    

"My house, over there."  I point.

Mike says, "Want to put him in my bucket?"

This is a grand idea as it will be less stressful for the Crow.

Into the bucket goes young Crow.  Who has yet to vocalize.  Also not a good sign.

In a matter of minutes, Mike who is a big muscled butch kind of guy, with fingers like sausages, (Think Hagrid from Harry Potter) is sitting in the shade with Crow, whom he has already named Maynard, while I go into the house and try to figure out something to hydrate Crow with.

From the look of the little drop of purple feces Maynard has excreted his parents have been feeding him black raspberries or mulberries.  Neither of which I have.

I make some sugar water, grab some applesause, a slice of bread, a piece of lunch meat, a turkey baster and a popsicle stick and back to the yard I go.

Mike is holding Maynard the Crow, who is looking stoic, as in I might die at any moment and I don't care.

I know that young birds get their moisture from food but in this heat obviously Maynard hasn't been getting enough so I get some sugar water in the turkey baster and point it at Maynard who gapes.  Good sign.  In goes a trickle of sugar water.

He swallows. He has some more. I try the bread and the lunch meat.  No go.

Mike gets some applesauce on the popsicle stick and Maynard jumps at it.  Maynard loves applesauce. He can't get enough of it.  Mike keeps presenting it, along with little clucks and soothing sounds and Maynard keeps gobbling.

Maynard is looking better already.

I suggest we put Maynard up in the lilac tree in the shade, where he is out of harms way and see if his parents, or whoever is supposed to be minding him, Crows often live in extended family groups, find him.

We do.  Mike goes back to work, though while I'm keeping an eye on Maynard out the window, I notice that Mike is doing the same as he works across the way.

I keep looking out the window. Maynard is still there. It has been three hours and still there isn't the sound or sight of any adult Crows.  Though Maynard hasn't cooperated and called to get any Crow attention either.  Sigh.

There is a tap tap at the back door.  I open it. There's Mike.  He says, "Got any more applesauce?" 

Armed with more applesauce and the popsicle stick, Mike's out there in the Lilacs feeding Maynard.

Mike gives him another feeding  at dusk.

 Maynard just before he tucks his head under his wing and goes to sleep.

STAY TUNED!  THE ADVENTURES OF MAYNARD THE UNFLIGHTED FLEDGLING CONTINUE!

Donegal Browne

Ravens In Manhattan?

Today there were these photographs of two birds published on http://www.palemale.com/    They appear to be Corvids but which species?  Discussion then ensued as to exactly  which species these birds are.  

Are they Crows or Ravens?

 No size comparison is possible from a photograph with nothing in it but the birds themselves.  Nor are we privy to their voices or possible ruffed feathers at the neck.

The beaks look a bit thick, but not definitive enough for me to be positive.

Supposedly Crows have fan shaped tails and Ravens have a wedge shaped tail.  Here without anything to compare the tails  of actual Crows vs Raven tails to these, it appears that the bird on the left may have a wedge shape and the bird on the right has a possible fan shape....but maybe it's a bit wedgie as it is slightly curved?

No clincher so far.  

In my opinion when in doubt about identification based on physical attributes, it is time to look into the differences in behavior.  

And it appears to me that these two birds are participating in some sort of courtship display.

The question:  What does courtship behavior consist of in Crows and what in Ravens? 

As it turns out, courtship in Crows involves the male doing a good bit of strutting. 

But Ravens do a courtship flight which includes flying with wingtips touching.

BINGO!  WE'VE GOT A RAVEN PAIR!

Donegal Browne

The Crows are Modifying Food in the Bird Bath Again! Does That Constitute Cooking in the Modern Sense...Just Add Water?

This is a Crow with a very large mouthful of stiff cheese.  She has now noticed that I've noticed her.

There is a back story here.  

A week or so ago, I made a toasted cheese sandwich, looked at the clock and realized, I didn't have time to eat it before having to rush off.  I quickly wrapped it up, jammed it into my coat pocket and thought, " I'll eat it on the way".    Then promptly forgot all about it.  

Fast forward.    

 Last night, I found the aforementioned, still wrapped thank goodness, in my pocket.  Needless to say,  it was one very dry breaded, tough cheesed, sandwich.  I put it on the Goodie Stump.  

Then about an hour before the above Crow was caught with a completely full mouth of stiff cheese, she or one of her cohorts, there was a three member Crow foraging party in the yard, saw me and  attempted to pick up the sandwich.  Either it was too heavy or decidedly not aerodynamic enough to fly with as it was abandoned and they all took off.  

And back to this post's starting point, the sandwich has moved to just the other side of the sparrow pile, and the Crow has a load of stiff  cheese stuffed in her mouth and partially down her throat by the looks of it.

Crow works beak.  Note the peanut gallery of sparrows waiting to fall upon the sandwich at the first opportunity.

Stretching her neck and tipping her head a bit to the side isn't helping much either. 

 Then he turned, gave me this look and I knew she was going to brazen it out and do something.

 She disappears behind the sparrow pile.  The sparrows shift.  We all wait.

She comes striding out.  Pause.  Look.

She marches toward the bowl.  Why isn't she flying?

                                    Up she goes. 

                                      Legs at the ready.

 

            Knees lock.  Feet grip.  Cheese still in place.

1:56:03 PM  I'm not sure exactly what happened here.  Her head went forward and down.  I don't know if it was just a motion to expel cheese?  She dipped her beak in the water?  She actually swallowed water?

 Look carefully and you will see only one small fragment of cheese back mid-beak, beyond those readily obvious  pieces which she is expelling.

1:56:04PM Now look at the contents of her beak one second later.  She is regurgitating more cheese into the water.  

1:56:06PM  She stretches her neck out and 2 seconds later her beak is again full.  This time there appears to be something lighter colored included.  Either another food stuff, bread perhaps, or cheese that has changed in some way by being "stored" in her body for a short time?

 1:56:07PM She deposits that beak full into the water.

 1:56:10PM  Then she stands and looks into the bowl.  Watching the rehydration process?  

Waiting for dinner to be ready?

But why rehydrate the cheese?  She obviously was able to swallow it as she regurgitated it.

I surmised that when the Crows placed dried out pasta in the bowl, waited, and then ate it, that it was easier to eat that way.

Now I hypothesize that she is doing it because it tastes better that way.   

(I suppose she might think it will aid her digestion but that may be going a bit far.)

Yes, according to the latest, not only are many bird's olfactory sense better than was suspected but they also have a full set of taste buds.  The existence of which had been denied for ages.  The issue?  They aren't located in the same places as ours are nor are they identical in structure to ours.  

Duh. 

 A gross example would be the fact that we have arms and they have wings. Can't deny that one, it's too obvious. 

Yes, we're structurally different to a point. That doesn't mean we don't have a possibly similar sets of basic senses even if they aren't identically processed.  The basic senses have proved to be evolutionarily advantageous in most cases,  after all. 

 1:56:18PM  10 seconds from the last cheese deposit. 

At first I thought the light color between the two portions of her beak was cheese.  Now I think we are actually seeing the side of the bowl.  Perhaps she is touching the cheese with the very sensory rich tip of her beak to see if it is "done"?

1:56:19PM  Notice that the cheese no longer has the hard orange color and texture.  Ever get cheese wet, it lightens in color and as birds tend to be drier mouthed than humans, moistening food likely releases the flavor to their receptors just as it does for ours.  

Remember how Silver, the parrot,  always wants people to suck a hard candy first before they give it to him?  I've always surmised that the reason for that is, he can then taste it, as he's no saliva to liquify the sugar on his own.  

(Correct.  He only gets that sort of thing very infrequently.)

Silver isn't interested in say a tidbit of soft caramel being moistened for him.

1:56:21PM  Pause, slightly open beak in bowl.

 1:56:22PM  No tidbit.  Closed beak.  She appears to scrutinize something.

1:56:28PM  (6 seconds later) She waited and now see the dark something inside her beak.  That is the tip of her tongue.  And there is a tiny yellow morsel of cheese in the very tip of her beak.  After all this trouble she is she going to taste that cheese instead of just swallowing it straight away?

1:56:29PM Beak into water.

  1:56:30PM  No bite just a dripping beak.

1:56:33PM  She appears to be touching and possibly moving cheese.

1:56:42PM  9 seconds elapse. She stands and looks around then stares at something on the ground I can't see.  But take a look at her right leg.  Your left.  Is that a band? 

Perhaps not.  A wrinkle in the skin?

 1:56:43PM Look back.

1:56:44PM  Ta Da!  And a tidbit which meets her standards is pulled out of the water.  The focus in the eyes and the curve of her beak makes it very easy to anthropomorphize a smile if one isn't careful.

1:56:46PM  More tending?  That wrinkle looks like a band again.

 1:56:49PM Unclear as to whether that is a food bit on the beak or more water.

  1:57:00PM  Suddenly she turns, alert, nictitating eyelids flash.

1:57:02PM Beak drops down again.

1:57:03PM  I get a BIG look.  

(Upon hindsight this look makes me wonder if she was just putting me on the whole time.)

 1:57:05 She turns to the side.  Is that a tidbit in her beak or is it only slightly open and there is a leaf showing through?  No there is just a trace of cheese visible in her beak in the preceding photo as well

1:57:06PM  She's off!

1:57:06PM

 1:57:07PM

 1:57:07PM   

 1:57:07PM 

 1:57:07PM  

 1:57:09PM  And off she went across the field.

I don't know when she or whoever came back and ate the "prepared" cheese in the bird bath, but when I went out to clean the bowl and put in fresh water several hours later there wasn't a speck of cheese left. 

Donegal Browne
P.S.  There was a previous post in the last 12 hours so if you've not seen it, keep scrolling down.