6/25/2009
Bob reports that the Decorah eagles are on the wing! I'm going to be doing maintenance on the forum, including upgrading to a newer package and changing the chrono order (1 will be newer posts, not older posts). That will be done sometime this weekend.
6/23/2009
Russell Edmonds reports that all three peregrines at the 3M watertower fledged successfully. Looking for a fun day trip in the Upper Mississippi River Valley? I'd recommend visiting Maiden Rock, since the babies there should be on wing or very close to it.
Does anyone remember Frightful, a King baby from 2007? Tim Ellestad confirmed that Frightful is nesting at Madison Gas and Electric in Madison, WI. That's a 253-mile distance, according to google maps. Frightful was named for the falcon in My Side of The Mountain by Mrs. Hild's Class from Anderson Elementary School. Frightful grew up on camera, since we were recording the nest that year for Animal Planet's SpringWatch program.
Finally, Joan sent me a neat email about a 2,500-year old gyrfalcon's nest. Here's the story.
6/20/2009
I've got a new post up on GRE and Frounce. The post also discusses (very briefly) falcon growth rates. Julie O'Conner and Debbie Waters of Hawk Ridge came up with a list of the stages of development they observed in the Greysolon nestbox. I wanted to post it here as a compliment to the observations about growth and stress in our blog.
Observed Peregrine Development at the Greysolon Nestbox 1. Hatch
2. hold up head {3-4 days}
3. learn to stand up {10 days}
4. open wings without tipping over {15 days}
5. grow feathers, remove itchy white down {7-10 days}
6. learn to tear up food {2 days}
7. think (look) outside the box
8. walk around inside box {7-10 days}
9. flap wings
10. step up onto lip of box {1 day, increase seconds on lip with each try}
11. learn to grip a perch {1-2 days}
12. stand on lip of box with stability (first 2 feet, then practice one foot at a time)
13. develop balance on lip of box
14. open wings on lip of box
15. flap wings on lip of box
16. explore perches
17. repeat steps 10 through 15 on perches {1-3 days for entire process}
18. hop from perch to perch
19. learn to balance and grab a perch from the air
20. practice soaring while holding on to perches (open wings and hold them out while the wind blows on you)
21. practice letting go of perches while flapping hard (start with one foot at a time)
22. watch mom and dad (and other stuff) fly {5 days}
23. GO FOR IT!! {1 instant}
Bob made some very interesting comments about incubating babies on the way home from Cohasset. I'm going to see if I can get him to write a post about it.
Both adults at Cohasset were unbanded.
6/14/2009 The male falcon at 3M has been identified as Charlie, a Horizon Milling/Lake City hatch from 2003. Charlie nested in Hastings in 2006 and 2007. There is no record of him in the database from 2008.
The Greysolon banding was also blogged by Dennis M (the 'treehugger' guy whose name I didn't know). It's really a fun read - click here to check it out.
I added some pictures to the blog and updated information on the nests page. I'll add more band numbers and baby counts as soon as I have them.
6/13/2009
I posted a new blog on the Duluth banding. There were 4 babies at Greysolon and 3 at Hibbard. Mother at Hibbard was
*Y/6, the same as last year.
Here is a picture of one of the young eagles practicing flight. Nora has a video of 'liftoff' posted here.
This is how the young eagles practice flying. There were several scenes this morning in which only two young eagles were visible. I don't know that a first flight was occuring - they do get off camera - but it won't be long now.
6/10/2009
I got a little blog posted on banding yesterday. We identified the female at Bay State Milling as Chicklet, a 2005 hatch from Dairyland Power Genoa.
We band at Greysolon tomorrow at 1:00. You can watch from Duluth's Lakefront if you'd like.
Here are some banding links:
Nora's footage. This includes Lansing (poison ivy heaven), Leo's Bluff at Waukon Junction, and Lynxville.
Bay State Milling Story
6/8/2009
The GRE banding is tomorrow (Tuesday the 9th) at 9:00 at Great river Energy in Elk River. I'll publish some more updates and photographs tonight.
6/4/2009
A change for tomorrow - we are going to Waukon Junction at 8am, then to Lynxville, and then to Lansing. I've started updating the nest site pages with this year's data.
Diane G. reported hatch at the Osprey nest.
Meanwhile, the young eagles look almost ready to fly out of the nest. June 9th was really an estimate for fledge - it could happen sooner, so keep an eye out!
The King plant was a ball! This event marked the 1,000 falcon hatched at a power plant. The falcons were named by Mary, a plant employee who won the naming rights in an auction to raise money for United Way. The falcons are named after her nieces and nephew.
Mary really enjoyed meeting her falcons and also got to go up the elevator. Bob's sister JoAnne, a 4th grade school teacher at Falcon Heights Elementary school, has her class following the falcons. The class got to come to the banding, and take a tour of the power plant afterwards. They were very enthusiastic about both activities!
The 3 eggs at Prairie were addled, which was a real shock - this site is normally quite reliable. While on site, we saw a third falcon. Bob thinks that territorial disputes might be the reason this site failed. We also saw three falcons at Red Wing Grain, where four eggs were laid but only two hatched. I've got to go back into the records to see whether or not this is typical for RWG.
This Red Wing Grain baby was roughly 19 days old - a very nice age to band. The falcons nest on top of the stackhouse, which is right next to the Mississippi. Upriver, you can just barely view Prairie Island. Downriver, Barn Bluff is right next door. I'd be interested to know if the male is perching up there, since he zoomed off in that direction while we were banding the young.
The top of a working grain elevator is an interesting place to be. The noise is incredible - all the grain from farmfields for miles around is concentrated here, where it is loaded on to barges and sent down the Mississippi. Although the grain is contained in chutes, the rushing, hissing noise makes me think of a giant's breath. I like grain elevators.
6/1/2009 The banding dates...
- June 2:
- Xcel PI, morning.
- Red Wing Grain, afternoon.
- June 3:
- Xcel King, morning.
- 3M, afternoon.
- June 5:
- Waukon Junction, 8am. You are welcome to come and watch from below. I'm not sure exactly where this site is, but I have an approximate marker here.
- Lansing plant cliff, 10-11'ish.
- Lynxville cliff, 1-2'ish. Lynxville WI
- June 6:
- Maiden Rock at 10am. Bob's 100th rappel.
- West Bluff, afternoon.
- June 7:
- Maasen's Bluff.
- 12-Mile Bluff (behind power plant)
- Bay City milling nestbox (new site, Winona, MN)
- June 12 (tentative):
- Agri-Bunge nestbox, mcGregor, IA.
Dan and Brenda are going to band at GRE, Sherco, and Monticello, which is why I d0no't have them listed. We don't have Duluth and Cohasset scheduled yet. If you want to attend a banding (especially a cliff one, since we only have limited access at a few of those spots) email Bob at rrp@mchsi.com.
Bob, Dave, Joan, and I banded 2 falcons at USBank LaCrosse on Thursday, roughly 17-19 days of age. Bob, Brett, Paul (a plant employee), and I banded two falcons at Cassville that were maybe a little older - 19 to 21 days of age. Bob, Dave, and I banded four healty young babies - 3 females and a male - at Great Spirit Bluff on Saturday.
I'll blog about this later, but here is a great picture from GSB on Saturday...
The little boy in the middle is Dave Kester's son. We put the falcons on a blanket so the children could see them. They really enjoyed it. Thanks to the Howe family for a really nice time.
5/27/2009 From Dairyland Power and the forum...
Genoa nesting site update:
It appears there has been a territorial dispute between the established female at the Genoa Site, Scooter, and a new female. The new female, a banded but yet unidentified Peregrine, has driven Scooter out of the nest site. Scooter's chicks are also gone, probably killed by the new female, although Dairyland staff has not yet found evidence of the chicks. It is not known whether Scooter is alive or whether she is also a casualty of the dispute. The same male is still at the nesting site.
Scooter is an older female who has nested at the Genoa site for many years. This “survival of the fittest” situation is distressing, but part of life in the natural world.
As new information becomes available, we will share it as soon as possible.
The Cohasset cam is back up - thanks, MN Power! This site is estimated to hatch on June 4th.
I haven't been following the osprey cam as closely this spring - I was distracted by the Decorah eagles and Pawnee kestrels - but I caught this shot this morning. According to Ospreyologist Diane, the eggs should start hatching around the 31st. Here's a shot of the nest from this morning...
 Check the forum for more news on all of the birds.
5/25/2009 We banded four healthy young babies at Horizon Milling on Thursday. The crew was Bob, myself, Joan, Jaime, and Jim. Jim works at Horizon Milling and provided protection from Lolo while we got the babies. Mother was confirmed as Lolo: Dad was confirmed as Gretch.
Lolo was her usual spectacular self. Peregrine falcons are incredible! At one point, Lolo was positioned just off the roof of the building, looking us square in the eye, and complaining while we retrieved her babies. Even more than her spectacular stoops, her ability to be (seemingly) effortlessly still in the air amazes me.
Nineteen days old is about my favorite age to band - old enough to be nicely robust, yet young enough not to worry about bumping. They are also a little less aggressive than, say, 25 or 30 day old young.
Here are two pictures from Joan:
We put the babies in a plastic tub and returned them immediately to the nest after banding them. This one had recently eaten.
Myself, Jim, Bob, and Lolo on the roof. Bob is retrieving babies, I'm watching, and Jim is covering our backs. Bob told me to sit, since she wouldn't get us in this position. He was right.
I don't have names, but here are the numbers:
F: R/89 1687-21323
F: R/88 1687-21324
M: H/31 2206-72034
M: H/32 2206-72035
The Blackdog young began hatching on the 22nd. Here's one of my favorite pictures, posted by Linda:
That's just one of the most 'awwwwww' pictures of a falcon I have ever seen.
I captured a number of pictures of the Pawnee kestrels in fledge, but I think this one says it all -
Just one little head left, 30 days after hatch. If my estimates are correct, the Horizon Milling falcons and Decorah eagles will be fledging at about the same time, around June 9th. The eaglets are jumping up and down in the nest now, which makes them quite fun to watch on cam - in fact, I just witnessed an exploratory flight at 10:10 this morning. Maybe they will be fledging sooner than I thought!
Completely unrelated to falcons, my husband saw (and I verified) a red-headed woodpecker in our yard yesterday. They used to be very common in Chisago County, but they aren't anymore - I've never seen one up here before. I'm keeping an eye out for it in the hope that it has a mate and is nesting somewhere on our property. We were both very excited to see this bird!
5/19/2009 The babies at Genoa have disappeared. We aren't sure what happened, or why - John is checking the ground below the stack and the catwalk, in case the parents cached the bodies. If anyone saw anything over the weekend that looked odd, please let us know.
The King plant started hatching on May 17th. Although the picture looks alarming, Belinda is moving the rather large baby underneath her. 
For a while, some of us thought it might be dead. But no, here it is yesterday - barely 24 hours after hatch.
Great River Energy also hatched. I highly recommend watching this cam - the sound adds a wonderful dimension to the experience. I think, judging by the brief glimpse of baby, hatch probably happened yesterday.
And Sherco hatched as well. Here's a feeding...
Of cammed sites, that leaves Blackdog and the OspreyCam. The little kestrels, meanwhile, seem to be eager to get out into the world. I think I'm counting four little heads here...
The late May fledging is starting to seem quite likely.
Meanwhile, the Decorah eagles are getting closer to fledging. I keep seeing 9-11 weeks quoted, which would make the week of June 9th likely.
5/16/2009
Naughty webmaster! I missed confirming the Genoa hatch - that WAS eggshell by her head. Here is a pic of two babies that Alison posted on the forum:
We're still waiting for King, though. Taking Bob's advice to recalculate from egg four, I get today as a hatching date. We'll see what happens.
Here are two pictures that nicely illustrate the difference in size between Brett and Belinda: 
Brett on the eggs
Belinda on the eggs.
The Pawnee kestrels are growing rapidly. According to the Raptor Center's kestrel watch page, they fledge 30-36 days after hatch, which puts the fledging date at sometime in late May to early June. They are 22 days old right now, and remind me of school children in this picture:
5/15/2009 The Red Wing falcons hatched yesterday afternoon - there were two in the nest this morning.
King hasn't hatched yet, but Bob thinks she will soon - I counted from the third egg, but should have counted from the fourth or fifth, since there were five eggs.
5/14/2009
The Red Wing falcon has not hatched yet. I went back and recounted to make sure I hadn't blown the estimation date. Nope, I hadn't. That thing I thought was a baby must have been a pebble!
Of course, the Genoa box was also due to hatch. There is something in the back that could be eggshell. It's to the right of her head...
No eggshell at King yet, though. Stay tuned! While we're waiting for these nests to hatch, we'll be banding in Lake City next Thursday. I'll get the banding calendar out for everybody later this week.
Here's are two pictures that illustrate the size of the baby eagles next to the adults...
It's that time of eagle growth and development where they explore the nest, causing worry for cam viewers when they disappear from sight or appear to stand right on the nest's edge. Given how the adult eagles stash food around the nest, there are probably tasty treats for the young explorers.
I got a message from Joan, Angel's keeper at the National Eagle Center, regarding the Photoshop guesstimation...
I don't know anything about surface area, but here is what Mark Stalmaster has to say about nestlings growth. "In only three months or so the nestling's weight will increase from about 100 grams to between 4,000 and 5,000 grams, depending on the sex of the bird. It may gain up to 180 grams in a single day....The bald eagle's growth curve appears S-shaped. Development is rapid during the first month, it slows during the second and it levels off in the the third. After twenty to thirty days the weights of the two sexes diverge: females gain weight faster than the males, resulting in lifelong differences in size. Males, however, develop their plumage faster than the females. Characteristically, most of the growth in the early stages of development occurs in the body tissues; later gains in weight occur when the plumage grows. Three major circumstances influence the relative sizes of the nestmates: 1) early hatchers are larger than late ones, 2) females outweigh males when more than a month old, and 3) eagles may be larger in smaller broods.
Eagles can fledge "anywhere from eight to fourteen weeks after hatching, but is most common when the birds are ten to twelve weeks old....When a male and a female are in the same nest, the male is likely to fledge at an earlier age. Older birds of the same sex are quicker to leave than the younger ones. And finally a single nestling will fledge more rapidly than one that has nestmates.
Thanks, Joan! That was very helpful and interesting!
5/11/2009 I checked Red Wing this morning. No babies yet! The young eagles were lounging around in their nest, playing with a cornstalk.
The eaglet in the picture above kept picking up the stalk and moving it around.
It's quite amazing to compare them to a picture taken not quite a month ago. Using the highly unscientific method of masking a young eagle in photoshop and comparing its total area in both photographs, it looks like they are roughly 6x (600%) larger than they were just a month ago. Does anyone know if this is about right, based on eagle growth rates?
5/03/2009 Hatch at Horizon Milling yesterday - Linda M caught this picture of the babies getting dinner.
I was very surprised to see three already, especially when I had hatch estimated at May 3rd! The next cammed nest should be Red Wing Grain, although the nest at the Alliant Cassville plant may have hatched too, based on plant employee observations. There are four eggs at that nest as well, so this could be a very busy season.
Bob is out on the river today. He reported falcons at Leo's bluff, and an adult male defending the Lynxville cliff. There are no signs of falcons at Lock and Dam #9.
The Decorah eagles have reached that stage of development where they remind me vaguely of grey fuzz-covered chickens. It isn't how they look - it's the way they sprawl. I'll try to estimate a time to first flight - the young eagles are certainly gaining weight and size quickly now!
4/28/2009 I don't think eagles can get much wetter than this...
The young were kept dry enough under her, though. Once the rain stopped, they all dried out quickly.
The Decorah eaglecam is now available via stream again - check the nestviewer for the link. I have at least temporarily fixed the eagle dailies also, so take a look at them for the latest stills from the nest.
Thanks to Xcel Energy for hosting the Decorah eaglecam stream!
4/26/2009 Hatch at the Pawnee kestrel nest started Friday. I was down in Iowa at the time, working on the Decorah eaglecam and enjoying a presentation at the trout hatchery. The Decorah trout hatchery is really, really neat. If you ever go to Decorah (or if you live there and haven't gone), I highly recommend it!
All the cammed nests are full! The Blackdog and Cohasset falcons have four eggs. If things go well - and I think we would all very much like to see that happen - we will be ringing a lot of little falcon legs in late May and early June.
Here is the entire list of estimated hatches for cammed sites:
- Horizon Milling Falcons: May 3 (4 eggs)
- Red Wing Grain Falcons: May 11 (4 eggs)
- Xcel King Falcons: May 13 (4 eggs)
- DP Genoa Falcons: May 13 (4 eggs)
- Sherco Falcons: May 16 (4 eggs)
- GRE Falcons: May 16 (4 eggs)
- Blackdog Falcons: May 19 (4 eggs)
- Cohasset Falcons: May 23 (4 eggs)
We may start up streaming on the Decorah eaglecam with Xcel Energy - I'll certainly post it if we do! I'm not sure why the dailies are switching hours - I'll look into that later on tonight.
4/19/2009
As regular viewers know, the Fort St. Vrain eaglets have all died. We believe something happened to both of the adults. Unfortunately, the baby eagles were not able to stay warm and probably perished during the night.
GreeleyJoe has put together a slideshow from the nest:
slideshow link. I really recommend looking at it. Joe is a Fort St. Vrain employee who really captures the nest well. He'll be reporting on the eagle thread on the forum next week about what happened.
This has been a rough year for that nest. The adults incubated through some snowstorms that filled the entire nest with snow. The babies started hatching while there was snow in the nest - in fact, the only snow-free spot was under Mom's body. I know the margins of survival are thin for wild animals, especially babies. Still, this is a very hard thing to witness.
Here are anticipated hatch dates for all the cam sites except Cohasset, in chronological order:
- Pawnee Kestrels: April 25
- Horizon Milling Falcons: May 3 (4 eggs)
- Red Wing Grain Falcons: May 11 (4 eggs)
- Xcel King Falcons: May 13 (4 eggs)
- DP Genoa Falcons: May 13 (4 eggs)
- Sherco Falcons: May 16 (4 eggs)
- GRE Falcons: May 16 (4 eggs)
We aren't sure what is going on with the river falcons yet - I know Bob has another survey planned. I'll ask about Monticello and PI and post that as well.
It looks like the server where the eagle dailies are hosted is down right now. I'm trying to get hold of the provider. If I can't, I'll move them to yet another server. I'll post later on today if that needs to happen.
4/14/2009
We have three eagle babies in Decorah. They are enjoying red squirrel, trout, and the remnants of a pheasant for breakfast.
I'm not sure how baby three will thrive - Cain and Abel syndrome can be a real issue with eagles, so we'll see what happens going forward.
Although I'm not sure what date the third egg was laid at Genoa, we clearly have a female in full incubation. I'm going to guess the third egg was laid on the 9th, which means a guestimated hatch date of May 12th. The third egg was laid at GRE and Sherco, which gives us an estimated hatch date of May 16th for both sites. I'm glad the two locations are close together!
4/12/2009 Belinda laid her third egg on April 10th. I'm estimating a hatch date of May 13. This egg was a nice reddish color, like the first egg. The second egg was much paler. 
The Blackdog falcon finally laid her first egg today, and second eggs were laid at GRE and Sherco. All in all, this was a busy week for egg laying. We were later last year, with most of the eggs laid after April 12 in 2008.
The Cohasset cam is back, and I've added it to the nest viewer. I'm not sure what's going on yet - it's 11:00 at night here, and I can't see the falcons. The nest failed last year because of bad weather. I hope things go better this year!
I've got dailies set up for the Decorah Eagles! You can click here to view them (they are hosted at a different site, since I didn't want to load hostmonster anymore than we already are), and I've set a permanent link in the nestviewer. Enjoy!
The Decorah eagles seem to be eating a lot of squirrels so far....
4/09/2009
The GRE falcons laid their first egg today:
...and yes, we had hatch at the Decorah eaglecam! For a look at some incredibly cute pictures, check out the forum's eagle thread. I've posted two here as well. Thanks again to the tireless posters in the forum - your posts are very much appreciated!
This is the first hatchling and Dad.
Mom feeding dinner - a nice fish.
4/08/2009
What a busy day! We had...
- A second egg at King
- A first egg at Sherco
- A third egg at Red Wing, and...
Decorah Eagle Hatch!
Okay, I might be jumping the gun here, but there is a mighty big crack in that egg!
Despite the cold weather, laying is occurring a little earlier this year. We had a lot of laying take place between the 13th and 18th of April last year - Red Wing Grain and King didn't get their third eggs until the 15th. We're roughly a week ahead of schedule right now at those two locations. Given that we have a third egg at Red Wing, I can predict a hatching date of May 11 for first baby.
Unfortunately, things don't seem to be going quite as well for our cliff population. Click here for a river report from Bob.
4/06/2009 We do have an egg at Genoa, and also one at the King Plant!
Nora captured two interesting videos of the event...
- Video One: The Discussion. Belinda and Brent in the nestbox. This is interesting, in part because the shape of the egg is so completely visible.
- Video Two: Egg Laying. Once you've completely loaded this video, grab the slider and run it quickly. Do you see the tail shake' as she lays eggs?
The Rochester Peregrine falcon cam has a nice description of falcon egg-laying. I exerpted the first part here.
Once fertilization occurs the egg begins moving down her oviduct. It's sort of on an assembly line where the egg gets built, layer by layer. First comes several coatings of yolk. The egg moves a little farther down the ovidicut where it gets covered with albumen (the clear fluid that we'd call egg white) and various membranes. Then it continues on its way until shortly before she's ready to lay the egg, it gets its final layer, the shell. The whole process takes a little more than a day.
Here is a very detailed description of avian reproduction.
4/5/2009 Do use the Raptor Resource Project site or birdcams in your classroom? If the answer is yes, please contact me and let me know. We are looking at approaching a streaming media partner, and this information would be very helpful to us. You can email ries93@gmail.com.
I think we might have eggs at Genoa, judging from how the female is sitting in the nestbox. Male is Lucas, band number 40/N, a 2004 hatch from Dairyland Cooperative Alma. His father is Mark, a 2002 hatch from Castle Rock. He would have been in the first set of young fledged from the Rock. Thanks for posting this, Alison - we didn't know who he was!
Belinda at King is sticking close to the nestbox this morning. Eggs soon?
4/4/2009 Eggs at Red Wing yesterday!
The falcon at Sherco spent some time in the nest box this morning. Her behavior made me think we might have eggs soon. One of the falcons at King enjoyed a lovely breakfast of bird...
It was really fascinating to watch on video. Meanwhile, the Fort St. Vrain eagles are dealing with more snow. At least it was just a light dusting. I'm trying to figure out what in the world is in their nest. It looks sort of like a chicken!
Some of you might remember all the turtles they ate last year. This year has been a little too cold and snowy for that, I think.
4/2/2009
Regrettably, yesterday's service interruption was not an April Fool's Day joke. Our service provider downed us because our network traffic was negatively impacting their server performance. We had over 250 simultaneous users try to watch cams, which doesn't work well with in a shared hosting environment.
I'm currently looking into a different hosting solution. In the meantime, I hope to stay up and running here. If this site goes down again, go to www.wordwell.com for updates.
I also want to give kudos to Alison and other forum members for posting on the plight of the Briloon nest in Maine. Bob contacted Shawn Padgett, who is very involved in east coast peregrine recovery, and Shawn was able to provide technical support to the briloon nest. Many thanks to all of you involved.
3/31/2009
Bob's got a new blog up regarding his thoughts on peregrine falcons and falcon effigies. He mentions that the next couple of weeks will be an especially good time to watch peregrine falcons. My favorite cliff-nesting spots (at least for viewing) are...
- Maiden Rock - you can pull off the road safely in the historic view and comfortably watch falcons in an unbelievably lovely place.
- Castle Rock - you can pull off on to a side road to watch the eyrie here.
- Fountain City Bluff - park your car in town and stroll to the north end of town. The falcons are in a nestbox on one of the cliffs.
Click here for the nest locations - I've updated the cliff locations, although I don't yet have the Alma Marina cliff added. Falcons have returned to that bluff after an absence of three or four years. Just an FYI - parking is not easy at many of these sites, which tend to be right along highway 35 if you are in Wisconsin.
Blackdog power plant is another great area, although you do need to watch from outside the plant grounds. Read Diane's Blackdog Eagle posts for an idea of everything there is to view here. We have three falcon eggs at Horizon Milling and are coming close to hatch at two nests - the eagles in Colorado and the eagles in Decorah. Here's a shot of the Decorah eagle mantling. The weather is awful - rainy/snowy and chilly. She's using her wings to keep the eggs warm and dry. 
I'm looking at the window at my bird feeder as I type. I've got a few juncoes, a brown creeper, a white-breasted nuthatch, some goldfinches, what I think is a purple finch, and a downy woodpecker. I like spring, even if it hasn't really arrived yet!
The wonderful cam operator at King confirmed Brent's bands yesterday.
3/28/2009 A second egg was laid at Lake City yesterday.
We are still waiting everywhere else...
3/25/2009
Once again, the first egg of the year that we know about was laid at Horizon Milling. Lolo, the female at Horizon, laid on the same day last year.
I usually don't try to forecast until the third egg, but I'll go out on a limb here and forecast the same hatch date, too - May 3rd. Genoa was second last year, although laying really didn't take off until April 13th.
Also, I completely missed egg laying on the Fort St. Vrain cam - I think I had my head too wrapped up in the Decorah cam! I'm estimating a hatch date of April 2nd. I thought it was interesting that, like the Decorah eagles, this pair laid three.
The Nests section has been updated for 2009. Keep an eye on the cams - I think we'll be seeing more eggs, soon!
3/22/2009 The Pawnee Kestrels laid their first egg on March 18th, and their third egg today. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess hatch date as April 25th. This could be wrong! I did add them to the calendar and put the estimate in the nest viewer.
Peregrine love is in the air, if sometimes covered up by strategically placed logos...
30/B, the falcon with the croggled toes who nested here (it was not 30/E - thanks for pointing it out!) appears to have been displaced. If we find out who is here, I'll let everyone know.
Bob has another river survey posted. This survey details all the cliff sites he visited, and gives a status report of all the sites we watch. Rebekah and I were also down on the river Saturday - I'm not going to do a full post, but I can report one peregrine at Maiden Rock, two at Maasen's, and two at Castle Rock. I witnessed copulation at Castle Rock, which hopefully means babies!
The falcon at Maasen's went into a hole in this vicinity while I was watching (in red box area).
Maasen's Bluff
The Castle Rock falcons were right outside of their normal eyrie. This has been a very productive location. The eyrie is roomy and well protected.
Castle Rock
The lone falcon I saw at Maiden Rock was very, very north on the bluff. I couldn't get a good photograph through the trees, and I don't have one that shows her location. It will be interesting to see where they - assuming a male shows up - nest this year.
3/17/2009
The Decorah Eagle cam is currently showing stills, but we are looking for a streaming partner, so keep watching!
Bob did a river survey, which he has posted in our blog. Joan Schnabel reported falcons at the Fountain City nest (along with Tundra Swans), and we've seen falcons at most if not all of the power plant and stackhouse nestboxes. It's shaping up to be a busy year! I'll get the nest sites updated later this week.
Brenda Hoskyns from GRE sent this picture of 30/B, from GRE, to Bob. She has a croggled foot. I liked this photo so much, I thought I'd share.
3/12/2009
I'm moving the Decorah Eaglecam to a QuickTime stream tonight. If it works like I think it should, it will improve performance and allow more viewers at once.
If you don't have quickstream, which is a free player, you can get it here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Speaking of the Decorah eagles, they now have three eggs! Anticipated hatch is April 8th...
3/08/2009 Bob hasn't had any word of dead falcons at Alma (I had the cams link wrong - they've been corrected now). He did say that he didn't observe one tiercel bite the other's neck in any of the posted photographs, and that while this box has a history of territorial fighting, no one has found a killed adult yet. If I hear anything different, I'll post it.
We have not yet seen falcons at Maiden Rock, Lock and Dam 9, or Lynxville. There are falcons at Red Wing, Lake City, and Wabasha, on the Wabasha Bridge. There is a nesting tray (I think - it isn't easy to spot) on the 1st concrete pillar, Wabasha side.
The Decorah eagles laid their second egg on Friday, March 6th.
We've got a new cam at Sherco, which I have added to the nest viewer. If the stream isn't working, click for the still pics.
3/05/2009
I added Alma and Genoa back to the console. We are continuing to work on the Decorah Eagle cam.
3/04/2009
The Decorah Eagle laid her first egg on March 2nd. The incubation period of the Fort St. Vrain eagles was 37 days last year, which puts anticipated hatch date on April 8th.
In looking at the calendar, I see we had falcons begin laying eggs around the end of March last year, so it won't be long now!
2/24/2009
Although we don't know why, the female owl at Valmont stopped incubating her eggs. When this happened in 2007, it took 17 days for them to reclutch. We are hoping it happens again.
A falcon showed up in Lake City on Thursday the 19th of February. Spring is coming! The Dairyland Power Alma and Genoa power plants also have birds. I'll get links back in the nest viwer when the cams are turned on.
I've had a couple of emails about the St. Paul cop who stopped traffic for a feeding peregrine - click here to read the story. The falcon is Elspeth, from the Riverside Plaza/I-94 bridge.
2/16/2009
We've got the Decorah Eagle's Nest online! Check out the Nest Viewer to see it.
2/11/09
 If I'd waited just a little bit, I could have posted a picture of the second egg, laid on the 9th. I'm sticking with my estimated hatch date of 3/12/2009.
Bob is on the Larry Meiller radio show this morning, on Wisconsin public radio. I believe you can listen online by going here:
Xcel added a camera at Sherco. I don't have it in the nest viewer yet, since it wasn't functioning yesterday. I'll have it up once its working, though.
After the terribly cold weather of January and early February, it's hard to believe we'll start doing our river surveys soon! Yayyh spring!
2/09/09
 The female owl laid her first egg on 2/06/2009. The cam shows a time of 4:56 for the first view. We are still waiting on the second, as far as anyone knows. Last year, they laid their first eg on the first Friday in February, and their second on the following Monday, so maybe she will lay today.
The eggs began hatching 31 days after she laid the second one. I'm going to estimate (if she lays today) a hatch date of 3/12/2009.
Check the Fort St. Vrain eagle nest - although the eagles probably won't (at least based on last year) lay until March, they are working on the nest.
If you can't see the feed, click the daily pics for stills. I'm going to try to cook something up that will replace the video feed with the stills when the feed isn't available, but in the meantime, click the daily pics link in the eaglecam page.
2/05/2009
We're waiting for an owl egg any day now - the female spent a lot of time in the nestbox, and we're almost to the day that she laid last year. There are some neat archived pics in the forum.
I set up video in the Nest Viewer instead of the still pics, which were having problems. I kept links to the dailies, though. Let me know what you think.
The Axis video server we had was damaged. We sent it back and are waiting for a new one. We hope to have an install on the Decorah eagle nest featured in 'American Eagle' sometime next week. A big thanks to the excellent Shanna from the Decorah Radio Shack for all of her help. She (and Radio Shack) have gone far beyond the call of duty to help us.
The Nature Conservancy had a nice little article on falconers and conservation - click here to read it.
1/27/2009 I finally got the calendar fixed, although I see that the Valmont pair's first egg last year was February 8th. Both owls have been spotted in the nestbox, which seems like a good sign.
In other news, Bob will be the featured speaker at the Madison Audubon Society's annual banquet on March 18th from 6 to 9 PM in the Great Hall of the UW Madison Student Union. He will also be on Wisconsin Public Radio on Wednesday Feb 11th at 11AM on the Larry Meiller show. You can listen online or via radio - tune in Madison AM 970, Highland, FM 91.3, or La Crosse, 90.3.
We're trying to get the Decorah eagle nest out to the web - we've got a video server and camera, so we're almost there. I'll post it once we have it connected.
1/11/09 Would you like to see American Bald Eagle online? Now you can - just follow this link to view the full movie:
>>
American Eagle Video
Despite the harsh winter, overwintering falcons have been spotted up at the Greysolon Plaza in Duluth and at the Blackdog Power plant.
Dot's 'favorite watermelon' laid her first egg last year on February 6th - less than a month away now.
I'm going to try to get the calendar fixed this week.
1/03/2009 Happy New Year! As several of you in the forum observed, the owlcam was (briefly) back on and the lovely Snowflake has returned. The cam should be back on sometime this upcoming week.
The Valmont Eagle cam is also almost ready to go with audio, so we are looking forward to that. Bob is checking into the cost of a line for the Decorah Eagle nest - we've got the server and the cameras, so we're just about online with that!
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