CORNELL HAWK CAM

Red-tailed Hawk eyass, one day old

I have been watching the Cornell University Hawk Cam as the little hawks are hatched and grow (the nestling is called an "eyas").  These are a pair of hawks that Cornell has been watching in the nest for several years.  The female is called Big Red and the male is Ezra and yes, you can learn to tell them apart!!!  They had three eggs this year and two have hatched, the first on Monday night and the second early Tuesday morning (I started watching at just the right moment and got to see the second one hatch!!!). 
The black blob in the upper right corner is a starling that is about to be their lunch.  The above photo shows the two eyass at one day old, with the unhatched egg. 
These are iPhone screen shots of the Cornell hawk cam images. Click on the images for a larger pix.

The eyass are now two days old and much stronger and larger than yesterday!
The egg has pipped (the bird inside has started making a hole in it and will hatch soon)

RTH eyass, two days old with mom

 Here they are today, two days old, with mom (Big Red).  Mom has a snake she is feeding them.

To see the hawk cam, click this link:

http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/16/Red-tailed_Hawks/?utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=562fb46458-Bird+Cams+eNews-FallVisitors-10.19.2012&utm_medium=email
Before you start chatting on the chat line, be sure to read the section called, "Hawk Nest FAQ" (just below the video window) and the Chat Guidelines.  In the FAQ section, you can find out how to tell the adults apart, and learn a lot about the hawk pair, their offspring, the project and the cam.

I found I could spend a lot of time watching and although semi-retired, I don't have that much time, so I click on the 2nd cam view button, which gives a small window, and I put that window in the upper corner of the desktop.  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see if anything exciting happens.

There are other cams, as well.  I've been glancing at the Osprey cam occasionally (they had one egg as of yesterday) and the Great Blue Herons, who have four eggs.  The action is at the Hawk cam at the moment, though!!  

For more info on the hawks (and all birds!), go to Cornell's free site, 
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-tailed_hawk/id
 
Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of the major places for bird study and they also have a more scholarly site, with deeper info, but that costs to join - Birds of North America
http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/

I want to leave you with one last picture of the eyass.  Apparently they play fight and it helps them get stronger.  This is yesterday.  The one on the right is "attacking" the other.

Day old RTH eyass play fighting

Check it out!

FIRST PADDLE OF SEASON

Finally got myself out on the pond today!  Went for a paddle with a friend who hadn't seen our wonderful pond.  She got a great introduction!  We hadn't even pulled away from shore when a muskrat came motoring down the pond; we got a great view.   Then we headed toward the dam and there was a heron fishing at a snag.  Another great view!  Two fishermen were on the shore.   There is a new muskrat lodge on the south side of the pond and the one I was watching last fall is looking rather disreputable and unused.  We paddled up pond to the mouth and there was a pair of Canada geese, one on the nest and one guarding.  

All of that was a pretty good series of sightings, then we spotted an osprey!  When it first flew across the pond, I only got a quick glimpse and I assumed red-tailed hawk, but it flew like a gull...  Then it landed and I got my binocs on it and it was an osprey - beautiful!  Somewhat small - perhaps a male.  We got to watch it for a long time and saw it dive into the water twice.  Missed both times.  Then we lost sight of him.  Came around a corner and he was on a branch looking out over the water.  He saw us and flew.  Later Carol called to say that there was a bird she couldn't see well enough to identify, with a black and white head, in the tree between our houses.  I went outside and it was the osprey and he had finally caught some dinner!  

On a not-so-good note, the pond scum is coming up from the bottom and floating on top already.  I saw, but couldn't reach, several water chestnut nuts today, too.

At the feeder: Juncos are still here, we have bluebirds in the feeder and the white-throated sparrows are calling.  Those are the oddities.  Otherwise, normal bird sounds.  Linda and I were out on the porch for "first bird" this morning.  We like to sit in the dark and wait while the sky lightens and we hear that first bird call!  It is usually a robin.  GORGEOUS Coopers hawk on the branch outside the kitchen window yesterday!  So much to watch around here.  :-)

So what are YOU seeing?????

THE ORIGINS OF THIS BLOG, OTTER VIDEO

So I am semi-retired now and am spending a bit of my mornings on the pond.  I started keeping a pond journal, but today it occurred to me that it would be great if others added their observations and we could share what we've seen and noticed.

With that, I'll start with my first few pages of my journal.

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 Thursday, September 20, 2012

Ah, retirement…

Doesn't get much better than an autumn dawn paddle on a misty pond!  Then I watched the muskrat make his busy trips from one side to the other.  The phoebes were making their chirping call so loudly that Blake started growling!  

There was a redtail having an altercation with some crows - looked like she was chasing them, though.  

THEN, I watched two otters play for about 10 minutes.  They'd surface nose to nose, then dive again.  Then come up and wrestle.  Then off to chase under water.  A third otter came and just checked in a couple times, but didn't play (mom?).  

One of them spied my boat and their heads and half of the body came up out of the water staring at me.  They moved closer and closer.  Curious.  Finally they were about 10 feet from the bow of my boat, coming up and staring.  Blake was not happy about this, but he kept quiet for me.  Finally they left, and after visiting the wood ducks, I came in so the critters could have their pond.

Magical morning.

 

 Friday, September 21, 2012

Carol joined me this morning.  I managed to see the brown furry thing that goes back and forth across the pond just after dawn well enough today to decide that it was a muskrat.  The head/body was smaller than the otter, but today I saw the tail.  We saw one of the cormorants and some wood ducks, a couple of phoebes, but they seem to be leaving – cool and not many bugs left.  No otters.

  Sunday, September 22, 2012

Linda & I (and Blake) went out today, and while trying to get a better view of the osprey, we saw 4 or 5 otters!!.  I spotted a disturbance in the water among the water chestnuts and I watched, then saw another black back and another.  AH!  An otter! Hmph.  Gone.  But there is motion in the tree that has fallen down in the water.  Sure enough, among the leaves I found this large, wet furry thing!  Mama otter.  Pretty soon a little head showed up and swam up to mama.  Then another and one more!  Three younguns.  They nuzzled in.  Awww...

Before long mama dove and disappeared, but the young ones started playing in the weeds.  I had brought my little camera and got it out, but Blake spotted the critters, too!  He wanted to go play!!  I did manage to get a bit of footage (hmmm  inchage?  It is about 10 seconds), but you can hear Blake whining and see what his wiggling was doing to my steadiness - it is hard enough to shoot in a canoe.  :-)  

While I was managing the dog & camera, Linda thought she saw FIVE of them!  Mama came up and was hissing at us - get OUT OF HERE!

Amid this excitement, we also did see an osprey – first one I’ve seen this year and I’m not even sure we saw any last year.  It has been a bad couple of years on the pond because of the water chestnut invasion. 
 

 Monday, September 24, 2012

Another very special morning!  Chilly, 40 degrees, and very misty on the pond.  Blake & I were out in the pre-sunrise dawn light.  We watched the muskrat, who was busy heading across the pond.  I think he saw us though, ‘cuz he suddenly turned around and went home.  Maybe something else was there.  OH!  That’s where I saw the otter later.  Maybe that spooked him, because we really weren’t very obvious or making sound.  The muskrats move SOOO fast!

 

We paddled toward the dam, stopping to take a few pictures of the sunrise. We saw the east end heron and then later, saw the west end heron.  I steered away from the heron so that we wouldn’t disrupt it in its morning vigilance. 

As we came back up the south side of the pond I watched the kingfisher for a while; he certainly was making a racket with his rattling cry!  I am still hoping to some day see one catch a fish…  Speaking of racket, the redtail was calling from one side and the crows cawing from the east end.

As we approached the heavy water chestnuts, I was scanning to see if I could spot the busy muskrat (saw him again later as I was bringing the canoe up).  I turned to look ahead in the chestnuts and there was the black back of an otter!  But what’s that big patch of white?  Must have a piece of vegetation stuck on her head.  Dove again, up again, dove again, up again, and still the white.  OH!  It is breakfast!  It has a fish!  It went into the bushes and probably up on shore.  I didn’t bother it by following, but went off to look at more wood ducks.

(More tomorrow - I've got a vid of the harvester working on the water chestnuts that I'll post tomorrow)