Red-Tailed Hawks, Nest Greenery, and Ants

First Meal

The hatchling red-tailed hawk at Eaglecrest ate its first meal yesterday afternoon. Like bald eagles, red-tailed hawks eat an extraordinary variety of prey. I thought I detected some fur on baby's first meal, but red-tailed hawks also eat birds, reptiles, insects, fish, and carrion. Eaglecrest's wonderful wildlife resources will provide plenty of food for the rapidly growing hawks.

We also saw the hatchling nibbling at the green leaves lining the bottom and sides of the nest bowl. Watchers know that Stitch and Spot regularly replenish the sprigs of small leaves placed haphazardly around the nest. As pretty as it looks, the hawks aren't bringing in greenery for decoration. The aromatic blue oak leaves may mark active territory, discourage parasitic insects such as fleas, ticks, fly maggots, and lice, or perform both functions at the same time.

Repelling Insects
We know that blue oak leaves release a wide variety of volatile organic compounds. A number of them have been identified as possible insect repellents, including isoprene, an oil that reduces thermal stress and repels insects. At least two mechanisms have been suggested for isoprene's repellent properties:

• Number one: Isoprene hides host plants and animals by interfering with an insect's ability to smell a host. Parasites can't locate hosts hidden in an isoprene haze.
• Number two: Isoprene repels insects. As the isoprene outgasses from the freshly cut leaves, it ozidizes to terpene, an insecticide. Many insects actively avoid terpene.

Whatever the mechanism, a number of animal species use greenery in and around their nests, burrows, and dens, including twenty-six members of the order falconiformes. Many of them choose highly aromatic leaves and/or bark, suggesting that appearance or appetite alone do not account for the regular delivery of fresh greenery to their homes. We've watched birds go to amazing lengths to build nests and protect their young. Why wouldn't they try to repel parasites and insects? 

Ants
Having said that, the leaves don't appear to work on ants. We periodically witnessed ants on and around the nest on April 25, although they didn't appear to be unduly disturbing the hawks. I'm no ant expert, but they appeared fairly small to me. Ants both migrate and swarm, so while may have been attracted to the nest by prey leavings, they also may have been simply passing through. I haven't been able to find much evidence that ants are especially harmful to birds, outside of a few highly specialized species. Some birds even allow themselves to become covered with ants - a practice known as anting that may be yet another defense against parasites. 

Enjoy watching the wildlife at Eaglecrest!

There is some debate about whether or not birds use greenery to repel or reduce parasites. Although I found the evidence to be pretty compelling, a few writers and researchers listed other possibilities, including that hawks are programmed to snip greenery in much the same way they are programmed to build nests, that hawks like greenery in the nest, and that the greenery is the result of hawks snipping branches away to improve sight lines in the nest.

Things that helped me write about this topic:

• The use of green plant material in bird nests: http://www2.ups.edu/biology/Peter/articles/Use.pdf
• RTH nest building behavior: http://rth-nestcam-cu.blogspot.com/2013/04/rth-nests-building-behavior-and.html
• Personal communication, David and RR ("What kind of leaves are those?")
• Nest sanitation: http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Nest_Sanitation.html
• Vertebrate chemical defense: http://books.google.com/books?id=mlvgSga4eSMC&lpg=PA65&ots=v0O-PQikrJ&dq=oak%20leaves%20repel%20insects&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q=oak%20leaves%20repel%20insects&f=false
• Isoprene: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2634482/
• Terpene: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpene
• Insecticides and Essential Oils: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00987383

Hatch at EagleCrest

We have the first hatch for Stitch and Spot Sr. at Eaglecrest. Here's a video thanks to mochamama22. A few special moments from the video:

• 4:38: Stitch's 'funny' feather
• 6:54: Stitch bites the eggshell
• 7:04: Dad visits the nest
• 7:07: We see the hatchling 
• 7:44: Mom covers the hatchling

Follw this link to watch the hawks: http://www.ustream.tv/eaglecresthawks

Raising Mabuhay

Mabuhay is a two month-old Philippine Eagle produced at the Philippine Eagle Center near Davao City. He represents the second generation of Philippine Eagles to be produced here: his father, Pag-asa, was the first Philippine eagle ever produced in captivity. Little Mabuhay is number twenty-five. Mabuhay is a Tagalog word that means 'live', 'cheers' or 'welcome'.

In the video below, Philippine Eagle Foundation staff are feeding Mabuhay with a puppet that resembles an adult eagle. This will keep Mabuhay from imprinting on his keepers, which would make him non-releasable in the wild. Imprinting occurs during a period of time early in an animal's life, when it forms attachments and develops a self-identity. The puppet will help assure that Mabuhay imprints on Philippine eagles, not human beings. This is important, since birds imprinted on humans will seek them later in life as sexual and social partners. Properly imprinted, Mabuhay will seek other Philippine eagles.



The Philippine eagle lives in forests on eastern Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. The world's longest bird of prey, it weighs 10 to 18 pounds and measures 2.8 to 3.3 feet in length. It has a dark face, a large bluish-grey beak, blue-grey eyes, and a distinctive nape of trailing light-brown feathers. Adults have dark brown backs with white underparts.

The Philippine eagle is so large that I thought it would spend most of its flight time soaring. While it does soar, it is also amazingly maneuverable for such a large bird. It twists, turns, and folds its wings as it flies through the forest pursuing bats, deer, lemurs, monkeys, birds, flying foxes, giant cloud rats, and snakes and lizards. While the Philippine eagle would be a formidable hunter no matter where it lived, the lack of large predators in its range makes it the dominant hunter in the Philippine forests.  Unsurprisingly, each breeding pair requires a very large home range to successfully raise a chick. A study on Mindanao Island found the nearest distance between breeding pairs to be about 8.1 miles on average, resulting in a circular plot of 51 square miles.

The Philippine Eagle is critically endangered. Only 180 to 500 are believed to survive in the wild in the Philippines. They are threatened primarily by deforestation through logging and expanding agriculture. The Raptor Resource Project has partnered with the Philippine Eagle Foundation to help them save the Philippine eagle through captive breeding and habitat conservation.

Preserving habitat takes money. Today, on Earth Day, we are asking our supporters to make a donation to the Philippine Eagle Foundation to help purchase rainforest habitat in the Philippines for this highly endangered bird. A few dedicated people snowballed into a widespread effort to bring back the Peregrine falcon and Bald eagle in the United States and Canada. We can do the same in the Philippines for the Philippine eagle. To donate to the Philippine Eagle Foundation, please click the button below:

To learn more about the Philippine Eagle Foundation, follow this link: http://www.philippineeagle.org/
To learn more about little Mabuhay, follow this link: A Chick At Last

What Makes Birds Incubate?

Red-tailed hawk Stitch incubating eggs

Looking out my window this morning, it seems unlikely that spring will ever arrive. But most of the birds we watch are incubating eggs or, in the case of bald eagles, feeding young. Clearly, they aren't waiting for the ice and snow to melt.

Daylight length has a profound effect on the physiology of birds. As the length of daylight increases, light receptors deep in the brains of birds detect the changing day length and trigger the seasonal development of the reproductive system. Hormones flow and reproductive organs increase in size. Courtship begins and pair-bonds are formed or re-established between male and female birds. Nest work kicks into overdrive: eagles and hawks fetch in sticks and greenery, while falcons create a scape, digging into gravel or substrate with their breast and pushing with their legs to create a depression for the eggs.

So what makes active birds like hawks, falcons, and eagles spend so much time sitting on eggs? Like the rest of bird reproductive behavior, egg-sitting is triggered by hormones. Initially, luteinizing hormones trigger the production of testosterone in males and progesterone in females. Testosterone triggers sexual behavior and aggression in male birds, while progesterone induces egg production in female birds. Birds are really louder and brighter in the spring, when bird song, plumage, and courting behavior are in full swing. However, shortly before incubation, female birds (and male birds that share incubation duties) experience another big hormonal change. Prolactin, a hormone which promotes incubation in birds, rises sharply while other hormones decrease. Opioid peptides stimulate prolactin secretion, which may explain why even active birds become lethargic while incubating their eggs.

The eagles have young and Stitch and Spot's eggs are ready to hatch. Over the next 30-40 days, the peregrine falcons will enter what Bob calls the incubation doldrums. We'll watch them sit, and fritter with gravel, and sit, and sit some more. The induced lethargy will end quickly once eggs begin hatching, and prolactin (and presumably opioid peptides) begin declining.

Prolactin plays an interesting role in bird parenting behavior. We'll return to it a little later in the season. See the bottom of the page for my links.

This chart shows the relationship between testosterone and prolactin in a male emu. Note the sharpness of the curves.

Things that helped me learn and write about this subject:

• Bob Anderson. He could write a book on the subject and his personal experience breeding falcons.
• This really excellent blog: http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/page/2/. I read a fair amount on the topic, but this blog made it very clear. 
• This article about endocrine and testicular changes: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378432098001109
• Photoperiodic Regulation of Seasonal Breeding in Birds: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1196/annals.1327.024/abstract
• Prolactin Secretion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6840521
• Opioid Pathways in the Hypothalamus of a Turkey: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10567857
• Prolactin and Starlings: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6693831

Peregrine Survey

Young falcons at Aggie's Bluff in 2012

According to the weather forecast, 4/16/13 was the only sunny day this week. Time for a peregrine survey! Dave Kester and I set off at 6:30 AM for the Lansing Power plant cliff, where we quickly located two adult falcons.  One was sitting on a cliff nest box that we mounted several years ago to attract falcons away from a ledge that provided poor shelter and was accessible to raccoon. The ledge nest site failed to produce young, but the nest box has proven productive. Nine young have fledged from this site since 2009.

We were very pleased to find an adult female falcon on Guider’s Bluff just south of the town of Lansing, IA.  We heard one bird wailing, indicating that there was probably a second falcon on site.

We did not find any falcons on Aggie's Bluff, two miles upstream of the Lansing, IA bridge.  We decided to head upstream and return to this cliff later in the day.
 
We found two adult falcons at the Shellhorn cliff just south of Brownsville, MN.
 
We did not stop for long at the new V cliff south of Homer, MN, since I had confirmed two falcons defending the site on my last river survey.  I remember hovering over this cliff ten or more years ago in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter and thinking that someday this cliff could attract falcons, since it looks much more falcon-friendly from the air than from the ground.
 

Dan Berger at Homer Bluff. Dan documented
the extirpation of the Peregrine from the Mississippi
in the 1950s. He is still banding birds today. 

We were very excited to find two falcons defending the Homer/P4 cliff that has not attracted nesting falcons for a few years.  We observed one falcon fly and land in a tree very close to the eyrie location.
 
We have falcons at Red Wing Grain, but needed to confirm whether we also had them at Diamond Bluff, in Diamond Bluff Wisconsin. We were pleased to find two adult falcons defending this cliff, but we don't know whether they are using a nestbox or a pothole. This cliff will need some observation. We mounted this nest box over 20 years ago, and we are very pleased with how it has held up.

We saw falcons at West Bluff and Maiden Rock, staying at Maiden long enough to confirm one falcon protesting a vulture flying to close to the eyrie. All appears well at this location!

There were no falcons at Twin Bluff in Nelson Wisconsin. This is our third visit to this cliff without finding falcons, although we found two adults on our first survey. A mystery.
 
We found one falcon on the cliff face at Maassen's bluff, and our friends who live down below indicate that all is well.  The pair is using an eyrie we improved by adding 80 pounds of pea-gravel to improve nest drainage.

I observed one falcon at Castle Rock on 4/9/13, during driving rain.  On this visit, we observed two adult falcons. However, the adult female left the cliff and flew out of sight, heading directly north. She did not return. The adult male set off in the direction of the Bay State Milling plant in Winona, MN, where our nestbox camera has confirmed four eggs.  If I recall correctly, every time we have falcons at Bay State Milling we do not have nesting falcons at the nearby Castle Rock cliff.
 
We passed by the Homer/P4 cliff again and made our way downstream to a new cliff.  The light was very poor, since we had to look into the setting sun, but we did spot one falcon perched on a limb near the cliff top. We raced back up to the Homer (P4) cliff hoping to confirm falcons were not just bouncing back and forth between the two cliffs.  We were pleased to find two adult falcons on site.
 
 By this time it was getting late in the afternoon, and we wanted to return to Aggie’s Bluff to see if a second visit would lead to finding a falcon. Despite the poor lighting conditions, we were pleased to find one falcon perched on the cliff face.
 
We returned home at 6PM, pleased to finding so many falcons defending Mississippi cliffs.  It was not that many years ago that some thought we would never have the peregrine back on these historic cliffs. It is wonderful to see them back 30 years after my first captive bred falcon was released in the river valley.
 
Bob Anderson

Meet Stitch the Red-tailed Hawk

Eaglecrest begins hatch watch for Red-tailed Hawk 'Stitch' and her eggs on April 17th. Stitch is a buteo, a genus of birds of prey noted for broad wings, sturdy builds, and soaring flights. Her eggs are estimated to begin hatching on April 19th. To watch Stitch, visit Eaglecrest's Ustream site: http://www.ustream.tv/eaglecresthawks

Once her eggs hatch, Stitch will provide most of the brooding while mate Spot provides the family with food. Red-tailed hawks eat a wide variety of live prey, including mice, gophers, voles, chipmunks, squirrels, shrews, bats, quail, corvid birds, reptiles, and even insects and earthworms. Although Red-tailed hawks have been observed eating carrion, they prefer live prey.

Life in the nest will follow a familiar pattern for altricial birds. When the nestlings are small, Mom Stitch will spend a lot of time brooding and tearing food for them. As they become able to thermoregulate, the young hawks will be less interested in brooding and more interested in exploring the nest. Developmental stages include standing, food tearing, playing and interaction, and wingercizing.  The young hawks will fledge beginning at roughly 42 days of age. They will begin to catch their own prey six to seven weeks after fledging and will become independent of their parents at about four months of age. Since Red-tailed hawks tend to return to breed in the area they were born or hatched, it is likely that Spot and Stitch's progeny will settle nearby. Spot and Stitch's linage may have occupied Eaglecrest for a very long time. Although they weren't modern Red-tailed hawks, the fossil record shows that Accipitrine hawks had evolved by the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch. Some of those fossils were found at the La Brea tar pits, roughly 250 miles away from Eaglecrest.

We might enjoy watching Red-tailed hawks now, but for much of the past century, they were a maligned bird. In 1932, Dr. Thomas S. Roberts wrote:

"Thirty-four of the forty-eight states have laws that variously discriminate between the beneficial and supposedly harmful species of Hawks and Owls and make provision for the former group. Potection, however, was removed from all species in 1925...Since that time, a general and wholesale slaughter of these birds has been going on...Both Hawks and Owls are so greatly reduced in numbers as nesting birds that they have become somewhat of a rarity."

As has been noted elsewhere, the Red-tailed hawk made a spectacular comeback from the dark days of bounty hunting and shoot on sight. Now protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the bird is a very common sight along open fields and roads, where it hunts for small rodents. The Red-tailed hawk comes in a variety of sizes and plumage colors and patterns, but all adult Red-tailed hawks are easily identifiable by their bright red tails, which molts out in the hawk's second year of life.


What's happening in the eggs right now? Probably something like this: http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/03/we-are-getting-lot-of-questions-about.html

RTH eggs are lightly-speckled to whitish ovals. Take a look at this video for a peek at the eggs, which can be seen at 8:29 into the video: http://youtu.be/SgQiZFioTj0


We are looking forward to hatch!

Things that helped me learn and write about this topic:

• Book - Oology, Ralph's Talking Eggs, by Carrol L. Henderson. A great book!
• Red-tailed hawk wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_Hawk
• Red-tailed hawk Animal Diversity Web: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Buteo_jamaicensis/
• Fossils: http://online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall00Projects/redtailedhawk.html
• About raptors, Raptor Center: http://www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu/EducateandLearn/AboutRaptors/Red-tailedHawk/

Where Did That Falcon Come From?

Screen shot of the online banding info database

Yesterday, facebook user Jeff Suggs asked if any of the falcons we watch have Australian roots. The short answer is 'No'. As far as we know, none of the falcons we watch can trace their ancestry back to falcons imported from Australia for North American captive breeding and release programs. Having said that, the Peregrine Fund did include Australian Falcons (Falco peregrinus macropus) in the breeding stock they used to produce falcons for release.

To quote Captive Breeding and Releases of Peregrines (Falco peregrinus) in North America:

"Breeding projects were stocked with birds from many locations. The CWS Wainwright facility had birds taken from the wild as nestlings from northern and southern Alberta, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, Canada; the McGill facility had birds from northern Quebec. The Peregrine Fund at Cornell University had birds taken as nestlings from Alaska, Scotland, Australia and other places, while the Fort Collins facility had mainly birds from the Rocky Mountain region. Most of the birds at the SCPBRG were from California."

From what I was able to find, most of those falcons were released in the eastern United States. The use of non-native stock was quite controversial, as chronicled in the wonderful book Peregrine Falcon: Stories of the Blue Meanie by Jim Enderson.

So how do we find out where birds come from? I like to use the online Midwest Peregrine Falcon Database, which is maintained by the Midwest Peregrine Society and the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. Take 11/X, the immature female at Great River Energy. To look up her band number, follow the link below and enter 11/X in the number field of the color band info category. If you have a band color, select it from the dropdown to narrow your search. Most of our birds are either black over green or black over red.

The Midwest Peregrine Falcon Database: http://www.midwestperegrine.org/db/

It turns out that 11/X is MaryEllen, a 2012 hatch from Queen's Bluff in Winona County, Minnesota. Since both of her parents are known, I can trace her ancestry through them. MaryEllen's mother has FWS band number 1807-77654. By entering that number into the FWS field, I learn that her name was Jean. Jean was produced at Maiden Rock in 2001, the first year there were birds on that cliff, and banded by Bob.Jean's mother was the unnamed 1807-61966, who was produced at Firstar Bank in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1999. Her mother 1807-29469 was captively produced by breeder and falconer Pete Widener and hacked from Des Moines Iowa in 1991.

Now for the Dads. MaryEllen's father was Cranberry 816-38602, produced at the Dairyland Power Alma plant in 2004. Bob also banded this bird. I remember it well, since we had to rush up the stack in between thunderstorms to get the young falcons. His father 2206-62744 was produced at Firstar Bank in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2000. His father 2206-13875 was produced by breeder and falconer Bruce Haak, a friend of Bob's, and also hacked from Des Moines, Iowa, in 1991. MaryEllen's parents are related through grandfather 2206-13875, who was present at Cedar Rapids in 1999 and 2000.

Thanks to bands and bird banders, the North American peregrine falcon is probably the most-documented bird population in the world. As I said in another post, if you see a band number, please post it here or on our forum. We love to know who we are watching!

To learn more about banding, follow these links:

• Bird Banding History
• How We Band: Reporting Bands

Jean's mate Gunnar was a bird produced and released by the Raptor Resource Project at Effigy Mounds in 1999. We'll be writing more about that project later this year. 

Peregrine Falcon Nest Box Program

Bob and falcon at Minnesota Power, Cohasset plant. 

Several of the Peregrines we watch are nesting at utilities, including Xcel Energy's Sherco, Blackdog, King, Prairie Island, and Monticello plants; Dairyland Power's Alma and Genoa plants, Minnesota Power and Light's Cohasset and Hibbard plants, Great River Energy's Elk River plant, and Alliant Energy's Cassville and Lansing plants. Our utility partners are also home to other birds, including bald eagles (Xcel Fort St. Vrain), great horned owls (Xcel Valmont), kestrels (Xcel Pawnee), and blue herons (Xcel Riverside). This isn't an accident - utilities provide an excellent home for peregrine falcons and other species of birds. A list of the sites we watch online can be found at http://www.farmyou.com/falcon_cams/index.html

The Raptor Resource Project started working with utilities in 1990, when peregrine falcon Mae was spotted at the Allen S. King plant in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota. A falconer and plant employee named Paul Simonette called Bob, who verified the sighting and asked for permission to construct and mount a nest box on a catwalk at the 400' level of the plant's stack. The site was tall, near water, inaccessible to most predators, and accessible to humans while remote from their daily activities. It was perfect!

At that time, the peregrine falcon was still highly endangered. Mae's mother MF-1 was produced by the Raptor Resource Project and released from the top of the MultiFoods building in Minneapolis in 1986. When she returned to breed in 1987, she became the first Peregrine to breed in the wild mid-continent, in the US or Canada, since the species' extirpation in the early 1960s. Mae, who hatched in 1989, was one of just 13 wild peregrines produced mid-continent that year. An awful lot of falcons have hatched since then. Here is a look at total numbers as of 2012 from the nine utility/industrial sites we watch online:

• Xcel Allen S. King plant. First year: 1990. Total young produced: 60
• Xcel Sherco. First year: 1992. Total young produced: 54
• Minnesota Power and Light, Cohasset. First year: 1993. Total young produced: 59
• Xcel Blackdog. First year: 1993. Total young produced: 56
• Dairyland Power Alma. First year: 1997. Total young produced: 55
• Dairyland Power Genoa. First year: 1998. Total young produced: 46
• Red Wing Grain. First year: 2001. Total young produced: 27
• Great River Energy. First year: 2007. Total young produced: 19
• Minnesota Power and Light, Hibbard. First year: 2008. Total young produced: 10

Xcel Energy could have said 'No'. While having a peregrine falcon on site was really cool, it was also a risk.  The company had no responsibility to provide a home for endangered species, and suppose Mae died? Any persons who bring danger or death to an endangered species can be fined up to $100,000, and the story would have been headline news. But plant manager Mike Miser said 'Yes' - he thought the peregrines were neat, plant staff were enthusiastic, and the birds provided wonderful organic pigeon control. The Utility-Peregrine Project was underway!

After the success of the Allen S. King plant, several other utilities expressed an interest in their own peregrine falcons. In addition to expanding the program at Xcel Energy, we received requests for nest boxes and or releases from Dairyland Power, Minnesota Power and Light, Wisconsin Power and Light (now Alliant Energy), MidAmerican Energy, Rochester Gas and Electric, and many more. Cargill, Red Wing Grain, and Bunge America also joined our efforts, installing nest boxes in Lake City, Minnesota, Red Wing, Minnesota, and McGregor, Iowa. A few statistics:

• The utility peregrine program has produced over 1000 young falcons in the wild. 
• At present, birds are nesting at 17 RRP/utility sites. Species include peregrine falcons, bald eagles, kestrels, great horned owls, and blue herons. An osprey pole had to be removed for bridge construction in Stillwater, Minnesota, so we are waiting to see if ospreys adopt their new pole at the Allen S. King plant. 
• I pulled a list of 473 peregrines known to have survived into adulthood. 64 of them fledged from utilities and went on to nest at other utilities, bluffs, grain elevators, bridges, and buildings.
• Peregrines have been nesting at our oldest site, the Allen S. King plant, for 23 years. 60 falcons have been produced here alone.
• Our birdcam work began in 1998, with "Mae's Internest". The cam was a sensation, and Xcel Energy's site was briefly the world's busiest corporate website according to alexa.com.

Our work with utility companies is sometimes controversial. Power lines present electrocution and collision hazards and the impact of wind turbines remains unknown. Utilities in general are not considered especially friendly to conservation. But the Utility Peregrine Program, a unique marriage of bird conservation and power production, was crucial to recovering the peregrine falcon, delisted from the Federal Endangered Species List in 1999. We've also worked with power companies on avian utility interaction issues and would like to think that our falcons are one of the reasons Xcel Energy voluntarily signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2002. Our partnership with utility companies has greatly benefited birds. 

Tess, the Count, and Larry the Lizard: Adventures in Symbiosis

Eaglecrest watchers might be familiar with Larry the Lizard, who periodically appears at the mouth of the Barn Owl nest, sunning and catching insects. I'm no lizard expert, but I think 'he' - we don't actually know the gender - might be a northwestern fence lizard. Larry resembles a northwestern fence lizard, lives in fence lizard range, and acts like a fence lizard.

Observers have noticed that Larry and the owls appear to have a symbiotic relationship. While barn owls prefer rodents, they will eat reptiles. However, they don't bother Larry. Is it because he eats ants and other bothersome bugs before they enter the nest? As David McDonald, Eaglecrest's owner, put it, "They look at him, but they don't bother him. He keeps ants and other bugs out of their nest."

Symbiosis has not been documented between northwestern fence lizards and barn owls, but it is known to occur between screech owls and blind snakes in the southwestern United States. Screech owls bring blind snakes - a sightless underground insect hunter that looks somewhat like a long earthworm - into their burrows, where they eat the pests that compete with nestlings for stored owl prey, as well as ants and other insects that could harm the young birds. Some people believe that the owls intentionally use the snakes as nest maids, while others believe that the snakes are dropped during the parent-chick handoff and simply find the burrow a good place to live. Fred Gehlbach, a biologist from Baylor University in Texas, found that snake-occupied screech owl nests produce more and healthier fledglings than do snake-free nests. Once the owl family leaves, the snake crawls down the tree and returns to its underground home. According to Gelbach, blind snakes are common guests of at least four owl species. The snakes we've seen slipping in and out of the nest at Eaglecrest might be performing a similar function.

So it seems at least possible that Larry and the snakes are engaged in a mutually symbiotic relationship with the owls - a relationship between individuals of different species that benefits both. The ants and other pests attracted to the nest's prey remains provide Larry with a steady diet, while the owls reap the benefits of built-in pest control. The snakes may be performing a similar function inside the owls' burrow. As scary as snakes might look to some of us (human) watchers, it is quite possible that they and the lizards are welcome guests.

Thanks to Eaglecrest for giving us a look at Larry!

---

Symbiosis may be much more common than we think. It comes in a number of different flavors, including:

• Mutualism:  a relationship between individuals of different species that benefits both.
• Commensalism: a relationship between individuals of different species in which one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped.
• Parasitism: a relationship between individuals of different species in which one species benefits and the other is harmed.

We've seen all three of these at the Decorah Bald Eagle nest. I'll return to this subject in a later post. 

Things that helped me learn about this topic: 

• David McDonald, who noticed the relationship and brought it to our attention.
• When Animal Enemies Unite: http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2010/Friends-and-enemies.aspx
• Symbiosis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
• Fence Lizards: http://www.californiaherps.com/lizards/pages/s.o.occidentalis.html

Peregrine Falcon Courtship

We are starting to see courtship at a number of peregrine nests. Those of you who watched at last year might remember that the falcons were in full laying mode by the first week of April. The cold spring seems to have pushed nesting activities just a little farther back this year, since by the last week of March 2012 we already had peregrine eggs at three nests.

The falcons begin with ledge and cliff displays, bowing and calling loudly. The male brings gifts of food to the female, often engaging in acrobatic mid-air food transfers. As courtship progresses, the falcons build a scrape for their eggs, digging into the gravel with their breasts and pushing to create a scrape. The male may solicit the female by bowing and e-chupping. Finally, both falcons bow and e-chup over the scrape.

GSBDweller caught Travis bringing Michelle food on Tuesday. We'll be watching closely for courtship activities at Great Spirit Bluff.

Valmont Nest Failure

We are sorry to announce that the Valmont Great Horned Owl nest in Colorado has most likely failed. Snowflake began laying eggs on February 12, 2013, and incubated them through an unusually cold, snowy spring. Her eggs should have begun hatching around March 21, but we have seen no signs of hatch so far. She will most likely continue to sit on her eggs for another week or two before ceasing incubation altogether.

Like the Fort St. Vrain nest, this nest has a mixed history. The Valmont nest failed in 2010 when incubation was disrupted by a territorial battle. In 2009, another cold, snowy spring, Snowflake stopped incubating following a massive snowstorm. The nest also failed in 2007 following heavy snow, although the owls reclutched and hatched young later in April. We don't know for sure that the nest failed because of cold weather, but we've seen it happen here before.

The lives of wild birds are filled with challenges: weather, territorial battles, predators, and food supply all play a role in the success or failure of any given nest. Although Snowflake diligently incubated her eggs, it
appears there won't be any young at the Valmont nest this year. We will post if the owls reclutch.

Barn Owl Hatch at Eaglecrest!

It appears the first barn owl egg have hatched at Eaglecrest this morning! Tess laid 7 eggs between 2/19 and 3/04. Assuming all of them hatch, we should have barn owl eggs hatching over the next 13 days. A video: http://youtu.be/n-AtdPhYRSA.

You can watch the nest at: http://www.ustream.tv/eaglecresthawks. I especially love to watch the owls at night, when the IR light does a wonderful job of illuminating the nest cavity.

We often try to determine when hatch happened. This can be difficult, since hatching is not an on/off event, but rather a process that occurs over a period of time, as this time-elapsed video of a barn owl egg hatching at Hawk Creek Wildlife Center shows: http://youtu.be/uPACjB14Nww

For more about eggs and egg hatching, read this blog post: http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/03/we-are-getting-lot-of-questions-about.html

Congratulations, Tess!

About The New Nest

We are getting a lot of questions about the new nest. Here are a few answers.

Where is the new nest? 
The new nest is still within the eagles' original territory. It is about 300 feet/100 meters east of the original nest, located between the bike trail and Trout Creek by Siewers Spring Road. We ask that anyone who goes to see the nest stay on the trail or sidewalk and avoid trespassing on private property. While these eagles are fairly tolerant of humans, visits to the nest tree will disturb them. All of our photographs are taken at long range.

New nest on March 12, 2013. This photo was digiscoped from a
few hundred feet away. 

When did the eagles start working on the new nest? 
The eagles started working on the new nest in October. They kept us guessing for a long time, but we announced that they had adopted the new nest on February 15, 2013.

Why did the eagles build a new nest?
We don't know why the Decorah eagles built a new nest, but nest building is a very common thing for eagles to do. Several studies have indicated that roughly 45% of eagles build more than one nest on territory. Some eagles that build new nests experienced failure in their old nest, yet even eagles that have experienced reproductive success will build new nests. The old nest had begun tilting as it settled on to the branches, so possibly that had something to do with it, but we don't know for sure. For more on alternate nest building, follow this link. This Connecticut study also has some interesting information on alternate nest building.

How many eggs have the eagles laid?
We don't know, but it seems reasonable to assume three, since Mom has a history of laying three eggs.

When will the eggs hatch? 
We have to estimate a lay date based on the eagles' behavior and history. We believe she laid egg #1 on February 19th, so we are guessing hatch on about March 24th. We will announce hatch once we think we have it.

Where can I find Decorah eagle photographs and news?
The latest news will be posted on our facebook page. You can also follow this blog, although it isn't usually as up to date as facebook. Photos can be found on facebook or at our flickr page (look in the 'New Nest' set). All photos are courtesy Jim Womeldorf unless otherwise stated.

Are you putting up cameras at the new nest? 
We are still working out the details, but we hope to put up cameras this fall, once the eagles have concluded this year's season and the young have dispersed from the nest.

The Perch Project

Alliant Energy has begin installing the eagle protection perches in Decorah. The first three went up on the lines and poles to the southwest of the trout hatchery.

This photo shows two views of the perches. In general, avian electrocution happens when a bird makes a connection between ground and a live wire. Energy flows through the bird's body to ground. The perches built by Mr. Condon's class in Decorah are located above the power lines and Alliant added an insulative sleeve where the live wire passes under the perch. The sleeve is long enough that even a stretching eagle should not be able to connect with the wire.

We'd like to thank everyone involved for their work protecting the Decorah eagles, especially the D12 Memorial Group, Raptor Nation, Mr. Condon and his class, Decorah Building Supply, Alliant Energy, and Puget Sound Energy.

A few links:

Students building perches: http://youtu.be/7VPqY9LM3EE
(this video also does a good job of explaining electrocution and perch safety)

The D12 Memorial Group's story: http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/11/bird-safe-power-poles.html

Perch blueprint: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68092929@N03/8203641600/

03/01/2013: Banding Birds, Part II: How We Band and Band Reporting

We are sometimes asked why we band birds. Banding birds provides an invaluable way to study their life histories and chart changes in bird populations, including changes in range, population numbers, and migratory behaviors. Bands do not hurt birds or impact their individual or reproductive success.

There are a number of different ways to band or mark birds. We use two leg bands on Peregrines: an aluminum leg band (currently silver in the midwest) on the right leg, and a multi-color band (currently black/red in the midwest) on the left leg.  Both bands are very light and fitted after the bird's leg is fully or very near adult size. The silver band contains a long number with a unique federal identifer assigned by the North American bird banding lab. The multi-colored band is an auxillary marker distributed regionally by the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. The numbers are larger and etched in a different color than the band, so they are easier to read.

Falcon 96/B, from the Dairyland Power Alma plant in Alma, WI. Photo by Roy Brown Photography.

In general, we band young peregrines taken from the nest by hand between 20-30 days of age, before they start flying. Banding can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the site. Once we return the young falcons to the nest, their parents come back quickly - we have never witnessed a peregrine abandon young after banding. We used a pan dam trap to catch bald eagles D1 and D14 after they were on the wing. Other methods of trapping flying birds include mist nets, rocket nets, bal-chatri traps, or even hand catch depending on the size, weight, and wariness or aggressiveness of the bird in question.

Banding tools. Band colors may differ from year to year and
region to region.

One of the team usually holds the bird while someone else bands it. Both bands are fitted around the bird's legs before they are closed.  The aluminum band is closed with a pliers and the multi-color band with a pop-rivet gun: a technique developed by Charles (Chuck) Sindelar, who still bands with us and was instrumental in bald eagle recovery in Wisconsin. Since female birds of prey are larger than male birds of prey, females take slightly bigger bands. We sex peregrines by tarsus thickness and 'voice' (female birds have lower voices). Although male bands are smaller than female bands, we discovered that females banded as males aren't damaged when we trapped 'Husker', a 1998 fledge from the Woodman Tower in Nebraska. Husker, a female banded as a male, fledged 19 young between 2001 and 2007. Her slightly tighter bands didn't affect her legs or her ability to care and provide for her young.

When we band peregrines, we record the federal band number, the auxiliary band number, the bird's gender, the actual or approximate age of the bird, the site name, the site coordinates, the bird bander, and other notes (parent bands, overall bird health, any treatments given (such as Spartrix for Frounce), and so on). We report this information to the Bird Banding Lab (BBL) and the Midwest Peregrine Falcon Database, an online interactive database maintained by the Midwest Peregrine Project and the Raptor Center.

Banding birds provides an invaluable source of information, since the bird's life history can be looked up and shared with others. Our peregrines have been spotted on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Eastern United States (traveling cross-country from the midwest), in Nebraska (traveling cross-country from Rochester, New York), in Florida, in Canada, and in many locations in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. You can report bands to the Bird Banding Lab by calling 1-800-327-2263 or going to their website at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/bblretrv/. If you have retrieved bands from a dead bird, you may keep them.  You will need to know:

• What kind of band you are reporting. For a guide to bands, follow the link below...
• http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/homepage/bandmarkerexample.cfm 
• How you obtained the band
• The date you saw the band
• Band or marker info. There is a pretty good guide to markers on the site. There are three possible leg positions for leg-banded birds. Pick the one you think is closest to what you saw. You won't get in trouble for flubbing the position. You'll also be asked for band colors and code 
• The location of the banded bird

If the Bird Banding Lab has information on the bird, you'll be emailed a cool certificate that provides information about your bird. The bird bander will also be notified. We love notifications!

My first certificate of appreciation

We've banded Peregrines on power plant catwalks and in elevators, on rooftops, on the ground, and hanging from ropes. We've banded on calm sunny days and in howling near-gale force winds, racing down smokestacks and up cliffs just ahead of thunderstorms. Most thrillingly, we have witnessed 'banding season' go from one afternoon, when the Peregrine falcon was so highly endangered that only a handful were nesting in the midwest, to a month-long mad scramble to fit everyone in. Thanks to the efforts of bird banders, the return of the Peregrine falcon in the United States is perhaps the most documented population phenomena in natural history. We know the lineage, natal nests, life histories, and genetic make-up of the majority of Peregrines nesting in the United States today.

Watch this video for a look at Peregrine banding at Great Spirit Bluff near Dresbach, Minnesota.

Barn Owls at Eaglecrest

The barn owls at Eaglecrest laid their first egg on 2/19/13. They are nesting in a hole in the tree just below the nest tray that the geese are using. The Countess (also called 'Tess) will most likely lay four to six small eggs that should begin hatching after roughly 33 days, or on March 24. Unlike the geese, barn owls are asynchronous layers - that is, they don't delay incubation to assure that all of the eggs hatch at roughly the same time. The eggs will hatch in  the order they were laid, and there may be an age difference of up to three weeks between the youngest and the oldest nestling. The young birds are brooded for about two weeks and fledge in 50 to 55 days.

Here is a look at egg #1

Barn owls are one of two living lineages of owls. Most owls are classified as Strigidae, or typical owls - a name that appears to have derived from the Greek word strix, meaning screecher. Barn owls are Tytonidae, derived from tyto, a word that means either owl or honored. I've already done a blog post on the features and adaptations that all owls share: facial disks, large forward facing eyes, 'soft' feathers, round heads, distinctive facial markings and/or ear tufts, talons and a 'hawk-like' beak. However, there are also some differences between the two.

Tytonidae have... Heart-shaped faces Large heads and long legs Hunt at night Are cavity nesters No feathered ear tufts

Strigidae have... Round faces Smaller heads and shorter legs Some kinds hunt during the day Nest in a variety of ways and places Feathered ear tufts

The heart-shaped facial disk of a barn owl has different directional properties than that of its round-faced cousins. If it were a microphone, we'd call it cardioid. The heart shape isolates sound sources and concentrates sound in front of the owl, obscuring sound from the sides and rear. Like its uneven ear holes, this helps it pinpoint prey. Its large head also means a larger facial disk with which to pick up sound. These specialized adaptations help barn owls hunt in very low light to complete darkness: a critical skill for barn owls, since many nocturnal animals curtail their activities to dens and burrows when the moon is full.

A barn owl's long, sparsely feathered legs help it catch mice, shrews, and voles in deep vegetation and underneath snow. Its third toe has a split talon that can be used as a comb. Perhaps their long legs aid in grooming, or help them avoid bites and scratches from prey. Or maybe tytonidae owls really like tall, long-legged mates. We know that dark spots on a female barn owl attract males - the larger and darker her spots, the more interested male owls get. Could long legs serve a similar function?

The lack of feathered tufts is also a mystery. Since some but not all Strigidae have ear tufts, I'm guessing - and this is a guess - that the common ancestor of all Tytonidae and all Strigidae did not have ear tufts (which are not at all related to ears or hearing). Therefore, the question should be 'why did some Strigidae develop ear tufts?'. Researchers have proposed camouflage, species recognition, and signaling under low-light conditions, but no one knows for sure. Barn owls are at the very low end of the avian acuity and contrast sensitivity spectrum. Perhaps they never developed ear tufts because they aren't likely to benefit from whatever visual cues, sexual attractiveness, or camouflage ear tufts provide to owls that have them.

Eaglecrest makes it possible for us to watch great horned owls and barn owls in the same territory. You can see why barn owls have been called 'ghost owls' and 'night owls' - their silent flight and vocalizations can seem a little eerie. They are very different from their louder, showier Strigidae cousins. Barn owls nest in cavities, returning to the same cavity year after year to lay eggs and raise young. Great horned owls commonly usurp the stick nests of other birds, while a barn owl makes a simple nest of her own regurgitated pellets, shredded with her feet and arranged into a cup. I'll be watching for more differences as they incubate eggs and raise young.

Barn owls are more effective than poison and traps at controlling rodent populations. If you have suitable habitat and are interesting in building a barn owl box, click here for directions from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Things that helped me learn more about barn owls:

• Ear Tuft Mystery: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/07/14/owl-ear-tuft-mystery/
• Barn Owls for Rodent Control: http://tommy51.tripod.com/aboutbarnowls.html
• Night Vision in Barn Owls: http://www.bio2.rwth-aachen.de/users/wolf/html/pdf/Abstract_ECVP2010_NightVision.pdf
• Barn Owl Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_Owl
• The Owl Pages: http://www.owlpages.com/
• The Common Barn Owl: http://rosamondgiffordzoo.org/assets/uploads/animals/pdf/CommonBarnOwl.pdf
• Microphones: http://www.performing-musician.com/pm/jun08/images/TechNotes_08.jpg

Canada Geese at EagleCrest

Check out the video: http://youtu.be/8hT_Cg551_0

The Canada Geese laid their first egg at Eaglecrest on February 19th between 5:05pm and 6:18pm PST. Mother goose Wilma won't begin full incubation until most of her eggs are laid, which helps assure that the young goslings are all at about the same stage of development. I don't want to guess at a hatching date right now, but this is roughly what nesting looked like last year:

• 1st egg: February 26
• 2nd egg: February 28
• 3rd egg: March 1
• 4th egg: March 4
• 7th and last egg: March 10
• Hatching: April 6th
• Nest Leave Taking: April 7th 

If the geese follow the same pattern this year, we should see an egg roughly every two days, with full incubation beginning about the time the last egg is laid. Hatch should start 24-28 days later: last year took 27 days. The goslings will jump from the nest within about 24 hours of hatch. We'll be able to watch the family swimming in the pond, but they will not come back to the nest once they've left it. 

People expressed a lot of concern about these three things last year: 

1. Mother goose isn't spending enough time on her eggs
2. The goslings will starve when they hatch
3. The goslings will die when they jump from the nest

So let's talk about them, shall we? 

Incubating the Eggs

Mother goose won't begin full incubation until around the time her last egg is laid. Embryonic growth and development is a fast-paced chemical process that requires heat. By delaying incubation, mother goose delays the onset of embryonic development  and assures the synchronous hatching of fertilized eggs. Synchronous (closely-timed) hatching is especially important in the case of Canada geese and similar birds, which leave the nest roughly 24 hours after hatching. Unhatched eggs or birds too young to follow their parents die. 

I used to think that eggs would die if birds stopped sitting on them for even brief periods of time. Not true! Embryos are less sensitive to cold than to heat, particularly before incubation has started, and few birds incubate continuously. Wilma will regulate the temperature of her eggs by varying the amount of time she sits on them, and the tightness of her sit. If the weather is warm and sunny, she may spend a great deal of time off the eggs. We also might see her cover the eggs with soft nesting material.

Feeding the Goslings

I'm going to drop some words on you readers. Canada geese are precocial - that is, the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment they hatch. They are born with their eyes open and can swim, run, and jump shortly after leaving the egg. This is important, since precocial species are normally nidifugous, meaning they leave the nest shortly after birth or hatching. 

Just before hatching, the goslings will consume whatever yolk and albumen remains in their eggs. This provides enough food energy for the next 24 to 48 hours. Once they've jumped from the nest, their parents will lead them to water and protect them from predators. Wilma and Fred do not need to provide food in the nest, and the goslings will find food (mostly) on their own once they reach the water. 

Jump!
Roughly 24 hours after hatching, Wilma will leave the nest and the goslings will jump after her. While this seems scary, it is very normal for geese. Canada geese have been documented nesting on heron nests, osprey nests, cliffs, and man made structures. Nesting in high places helps protect eggs and very young babies from ground-bound predators including raccoon, coyotes, opossums, cats, and dogs.

The jump is over very quickly. Dad Fred will be waiting on the ground below to help protect his family. Wilma will fly down from the nest and honk for the goslings, who will quickly follow her out of the nest. Their  light weight and downy bodies will help protect them from injuries when they land on the soft grassy surface below the nest, and Eaglecrest staffer Ramblin' Raptor will also put out straw or grass to help cushion their landing. Once the goslings have landed, their parents will lead them directly to the pond, honking and hissing all the way.

To see just how fast the jump goes, watch this video from 2012:

I've often heard Bob say that birds wouldn't do it if it didn't work. Successful behaviors lead to more offspring to pass those traits on to. Geese that are good at synchronous incubation will have better offspring survival rates than those that aren't. Geese that nest high will lose fewer eggs and young to ground-based predators, offsetting potential losses caused by landing injuries. Whatever we might think as human watchers, Fred and Wilma are following a way of life that has produced more winners than loosers. Mama (goose) knows best.

Decorah Eagles Announcement

It appears that the Decorah eagles have chosen the new nest they started last fall for this year’s nesting season. If they were going to use the old nest, we should have seen them bringing in soft nesting materials and building a nest bowl for their eggs. While Bob observed them bouncing back and forth as late as the morning of February 13th, they appear to have a pronounced affinity for the new nest.

Although we haven't seen it in Decorah before, multiple nest building is a relatively commonplace activity: in most but not all instances bald eagles will have more than one nest in their breeding territory. According to Pat Schlaurbaum from the Iowa DNR: "Alternative nests are quite common for a species that exhibits compulsive nest building behavior. While many alternative nests are active immediately, there are instances where eagles relocate from the alternative nest and return to the original nest and vice versa."

While we are disappointed that the eagles have left the original nest, they are simply doing what eagles do. Pending approval and support from all landowners, we will install cameras near the new nest in the fall of 2013. Cameras at both nests will assure that the public will be able to follow these famous eagles.

The Raptor Resource Project has many other bird cams across the country. Our Bald Eagle Cam in Colorado has been operating for close to ten years and allows viewers to switch between two cameras. We also have Falcon Cams, Red-tailed Hawk Cams, a Vulture Cam, a Kestrel Cam, a Great Blue Heron Cam, and Owl Cams that can viewed fromwww.raptorresource.org. Click on ‘bird cams’ on the top of the page to view them. You can also get the latest news from our facebook page, read more about multiple nest building (and many other topics) on our blog athttp://raptorresource.blogspot.com/, or chat with other bird fans in our forum: http://www.raptorresource.org/forum/. We will update on the new nest on facebook as we are able.

We look forward to bringing to the Web a new species of eagle from another part of the planet. The Philippine Eagle is on the brink of extinction and we have been working with the Philippine Eagle Foundation to bring a live Philippine Eagle Cam to the world. We are hoping that we can use the power of the Web to both educate and initiate efforts to help save this species. This is everything that the Raptor Resource Project stands for.

02/06/13: Banding Birds, Part I: A Brief History

Falcon 72/N, a 2011 hatch from the Allen S. King plant .
I'll talk more about the band colors in our
next installment

We sometimes get asked why we band birds. Bird banding allows us to study the movement, survival, and behavior of the birds we band, and get life histories for at least some of the birds we watch. Bird banding has helped researchers gather information on mortality rates, dispersal patterns, migration, behavior, social structure, and seasonal and long-term population trends. It allows us to track individual peregrine falcons, giving us an intimate look at how a species behaves as it recovers, grows, and eventually reaches stasis with its environment. Without bird banding, we could not track the success of our cliff recovery program, know the history of any given site from year to year, or track the ebb and flow between urban and cliff-nesting populations. We would not know that female falcons tend to stay within 200 miles of their natal nests, that males tend to stay within 70 miles of their natal nest, and that Zeus, the male at Woodman Tower in Nebraska, was a real outlier (Zeus was released in Rochester, New York: a straight-line distance of 945 miles). The leg bands we use do not harm birds or adversely affect their survival rates.

Bird banding has a long and storied history. In 254 BC, Quintus Fabius Pictor recorded the use of birds as message carriers by the Romans. Pliny noted the use of birds as messengers in his Natural History, completed in 77 AD, and Marco Polo, writing on falconry in Asia between 1275 and 1295, stated: "Each bird belonging to the sovereign and the Barons has a tablet of silver on its feet, with its name and that of the owner inscribed so that wherever caught it can be returned to him."

Metal bird banding in Europe also began as a way for royal falconers to identify and recapture escaped or stolen birds. Recorded recaptures include a falcon owned by Henry IV, which escaped at Fontainebleau and was recovered in Malta, 1,350 miles away, and a Canary falcon owned by the Duke of Lerma, which flew from Anadalusia to the island of Teneriffe, a distance of 750 miles. At some point, royalty began banding other birds on their royal forests and hunting land, including blue birds, herons, ducks, buzzards, swifts, and storks. Methods included collars, leg rings, and plates.

Although many sovereigns and scholars were enthusiastic about marking birds, systematic bird banding as a means of studying bird populations didn't begin in Europe until 1899, when a Danish schoolteacher named Hans Christian Mortensen began putting aluminum rings on starlings, storks, ducks, and larger birds of prey, inscribing them with his name and address in the hope they would be returned. Although the practice was somewhat controversial, Mortensen received so many interesting returns that others quickly followed. By 1909, ornithologists and enthusiasts were banding birds for study in East Prussia, Ireland, England, Hungary, and France.

In addition to Cole and Audubon, other important names in early American bird banding include Dr. Paul Bartsch, who began tagging black-crowned night herons in 1902, P. A. Taverner, who furnished 200 hand-made aluminum bands to his correspondents, Jack Miner, who began banding in 1909 and tagged his 20,000 goose in 1939, and Dr. John B Watson, who conducted the first American homing experiment, also in 1909.

James Audubon is widely acknowledged as the first bird bander in the Americas, but it was ornithologist Leon J.  Cole who introduced the concept of scientific, systematic bird banding on this side of the globe. Early bird banding efforts were personal and haphazard: individuals and groups used their own private markers, IDs, and tagging methods. As Harold Wood reports in A History of Bird Banding: "A Duck Hawk (note: Peregrine falcon) was found at  Cape Canaveral, near Palm Beach, Florida, December 10, 1888, with a tin cap-box attached to its neck by a wire and bearing a message within dated October 10, 1888." An enthusiast had trapped the Peregrine and released it from the Frying Pan Shoals Lightship off Cape Fear, slightly less than 200 miles from the place where it was found. A more dramatic example was found on a mallard duck shot in North Carolina in January 1910, which read "Have Faith in God! Write Jack Miner, Kingsville, Ont." Standardized tags had yet to be developed.

Cole and other bird banders recognized the importance of organizing to better share data and compare practices. In November 1908, Cole presented a paper titled "The Tagging of Wild Birds as a Means of Studying their Movements" to the American Ornithologists Union.  In December 1909, the AOU organized the American Bird Banding Association, which consisted of President Cole and 34 charter members. The group researched banding methods in six different European organizations, eventually settling on the style of band recommended by 'Country Life' of London. The group distributed 4,173 bands to 44 persons. 800 of those bands were used on 73 species of birds. Modern bird banding had begun. A few milestones:

• In the early 1900s, concern over declining numbers of some birds, including waterfowl and passenger pigeons, lead to an international agreement to manage migratory birds. The Migratory Bird Convention was signed by Canada and the United States in 1916.
• 1920: Under the leadership of Fredrick Lincoln, the US Bureau of Biological Survey takes on overseeing the Migratory Bird Convention and coordinating banding activities in North America. The Bird Banding Laboratory (USA) and the Canadian Bird Banding Office manage permits, supply bands and keep records. Data on all birds banded in North America is kept in Washington, D.C. Between 1920 and 1946, Lincoln organized the banding office, developed numbering schemes and record keeping procedures, recruited banders, established standards, fostered international cooperation, and promoted banding as a tool in scientific research and management. 
• 1936: Mexico joins the Migratory Bird Convention.
• 2002: The 100th year of scientific bird banding is celebrated. Some species, like the passenger pigeon, are gone forever. But others, like the bald eagle and peregrine falcon, are well on their way to recovery after nearly becoming extinct in the latter half of the 20th century 
• 2011: More than 64 million birds have been banded in the United States and Canada, according to records received by the BBL. About 3.5 million of these bands have been recovered and reported back. On average, about 1.2 million birds are banded every year.

Look for the next banding blog on Tuesday, February 12. I'll talk about the specifics of what we do and how to read and report bands.

---

Things that helped me research and learn a little more about bird banding:

• Bob Anderson, personal communication
• Doug Wood's excellent article on the history of bird banding: http://sora.unm.edu/node/18869
• Delta Waterfowl web page: http://www.deltawaterfowl.org/research/bios/articles/bandinghistory.php
• The bird banding lab: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/historyNew.cfm
• Leon J. Cole: http://mail.sumnercomm.net/~rmangile/Pigeons/LeonCole.html
• Wisconsin Ornithological Society: http://wsobirds.org/
• Wiki: North American Bird Banding Program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Bird_Banding_Program
• A 1959 issue of Sports Illustrated: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1134216/2/index.htm

Where are the Decorah Eagles going to nest?

Mom and Dad on February 5th

We are getting this question on a very regular basis and we still don't have an answer. Initially, they were dividing their time fairly equally between the two nests, spending about 50% of total nest time in or near each nest. They went through a brief flurry of activity at the original nest towards the end of January, which made us think they might be using the original nest after all. However, much of the activity at the original nest has subsided and we've seen them spending a little more time at the new nest. They also haven't started bringing many soft nesting materials into the nest yet, something we thought should be in full swing by now. 

Having said that, we aren't ready to concede the original nest. They've been making visits on and off, and we haven't yet observed them bringing soft nesting material into yonder nest. We're trying to watch them just a little bit closer, since soft nesting materials might tell us one way or another. We'll keep you posted, and please let us know if you see anything. 

In the meantime, here's a video highlight of a visit to the original nest on 02/05/13: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/29053339/highlight/322844. You can also see it on our youtube channel at http://youtu.be/FcxOk2ndlgE. Enjoy!