Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nora in IA]

Tuesday (5/11) evening -- still 2 and 2.

[Nora in IA]

I couldn't help but laugh during the feeding at 6:06 this morning.  She was plucking that bird and just throwing the downy feathers all over.  They were landing all over the little ones and around the little ones until they got to eat more of it.  It would be sitting on top of their heads like feather hats.  Most of the pile you see is what landed or blew all around them. 

[Linda M]

Ha - Hibbard always was the messiest box!  Thanks to you, Nora, and Shep for all of the great falcon nest photos!

[shep]

Some males dress the bird before bringing it home

I'm watching the kestrel eggs hatch today   

[Nora in IA]

I've been trying to figure out what kind of bird that was.  That one sure wasn't pre-dressed. 

[shep]

a dead one 

[Nora in IA]

So true. 

[Nora in IA]

It looks like it's staying at 2 hatched and 2 eggs.  That's too bad.    But two healthy is better than none.

[shep]

only 2 of 4 hatched at Chesapeak too

[Nora in IA]

Working on some wing flapping 

[Nora in IA]

Thought I'd check in on these two!  It looks like the one egg that didn't hatch has a pip that never progressed....


And they look well-fed!

[shep]

Falcons became rare due to environmental factors re: eggs.
Are there again factors causing chicks to be unable to get out?
This is not the only nest like this, or the first year

[Nora in IA]

It was a crazy spring.  We've had other years where we were down on hatches and then they do fine again.  Hopefully that's all it is.

[Nora in IA]

Falcons became rare due to environmental factors re: eggs.
Are there again factors causing chicks to be unable to get out?
This is not the only nest like this, or the first year

Shep I heard back from Amy on this:
"Falcons dying during hatch isn't especially wide spread at our nests, and production is pretty on par so far. We had four falcons/four eggs at GRE, three falcons/four eggs at Redbird (the unhatched egg had never started hatch), and one falcon/four eggs at Bunge (none of the three unhatched eggs started hatch).

If I had to guess, I'd look at the very cold weather in April. If falcons weren't in full incubation, it could have caused early eggs to die. We will see what production looks like through the rest of our sites."

[shep]

Thank you