Two giant nestlings and one is always hiding! About to make that first flight - my prediction is after the 4th of July this year. Breaking tradition. HA!
I had them shout the answer, "Who's your favorite Bird Lady?" "Katedavis!" I may have coached them, but Watsons has been coming over here since before most of the staff was born. Especially our new pal Alex in the back, arms raised, after he was first in the pigeon loft when they arrived. Pigeons flying, children screaming and giggling. Fun day with birds and kids!
Here are the MAM campers and their creations - paper mâché raptors ranging from an Osprey and Snowy Owl to several Sibley's and Owens. Great work and fun, Bev, and kids.
This Peregrine, fastest predator in the world, was catching stoneflies over the river yesterday! Jay Sumner and I wrote a paper about this behavior in 2007, only observed at four nests total...in the world, three in Montana and one in Idaho! The largest of these stoneflies is the salmonfly, body as big as your pinky finger, and will go search for that hatch next, but may have missed it. Fisherperson's delight.
Perhaps the best artists ever in our annual Raptors and Art Camp at the Missoula Art Museum this year, masks and all! I just looked it up and the first class I did there was in 1994 for 65 children and adults - before I even had a computer. All records were written in longhand! Thanks Bev Beck Glueckert and I know she and I have been doing this about 20 years. I'll look that up next. Center is model Sonora the Aplomado, bottom is Talon the young artiste.
Back in place thanks (mostly) to Heidi Sedivy and grad students, our first ROTR board member Deb Fassnaught and her grandkids. I warned them when they come over for a visit...some of us will get wet.
Finally a photo of the nest mates together, quick trip to the river last night. I gave up waiting for the parents. These two will stay put for about four weeks as they hatched around the 15th of March. Track record for this nest, popular fledging date is the 4th of July, and I think this will be a little later. We'll see.
Finally saw a Bobolink yesterday, a male singing away and hope a female is out there somewhere. They have been absent from the area the last two summers, disturbing. It is said that they look like they are wearing a tuxedo, on backwards, and have been called the "skunk blackbird." Bobolinks have one of the longest migrations of a New World songbird, traveling over 12,000 miles round trip, all the way to Bolivia and Paraguay, most overwintering in north-east Argentina! Hard to imagine.
First time on the beach in a while, a glimpse of one of the young. They'll be in there another month before they fledge, Big Babies!
The proof is in the feathers. Top is my diagram of falcon molt patterns, a feature that sets them apart from the order of hawks - on page 28 of the new book Falcons of North America Second Edition. Below is Sibley the Peregrine's day-one of molt, all four feathers in her enclosure, primary 4, secondary 5 and exactly the same on each wing, left and right!
The greatest tour EVER! On Friday we hosted a group featuring lead singer of the band Queensryche Geoff Tate (second from the left) and his fans and friends. I admitted that I am more of a jazz buff and they forgave me. Absolutely wonderful fun.
Tom's bridge across the slough to the river was about to start floating (but tied in) with the high water, and our friend Andy Snowden came to the rescue! Top is a photo within hours of it starting its nearly-yearly float, and Andy literally picked up each end to install these cinder blocks. High and Dry now. Flood waters are supposed to peak this week so this may just save us from having to re-installed it later this summer. And the last photo - Nico can read: "PLEASE Do Not Walk On Bridge."
Guess what this Peregrine is carrying? That's right, a male Western Tanager, finally delivered to the nest after showing off for a while.
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