Showing posts with label nesting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nesting. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
It's a mystery!
As noted in the post below, our ravens have been acting strangely. They're always a bit enigmatic, but this year their actions have been particularly hard to decipher. A few points I wanted to bring up:
- - The image above was taken in late July of last year, and shows the first time I saw one of the fledglings actually flying outside of the nest. I observed them in the days prior to this outside of the nest, but still hesitant regarding flying. I actually have pictures of the three juveniles on the first day we were finally able to see them out of the nest, in the very top of their cypress tree, which are dated July 12th. So it seems that with Hrafn/Raven Jr. they were extremely early this year.
- - Sweep Commander observed them pulling the same trick in the gardens of pulling up the bamboo edging that I observed here in January, though obviously this could be completely unrelated behavior.
- - We haven't seen the young raven in about a week now, and as Sweep Commander noted, the ravens appear to be gathering new nesting materials. Is the young one dead? Has he left? The latter seems highly unlikely as all the information I'm aware of says that juvenile ravens stick around for 6 months after fledging.
- - Perhaps he just looks so much like an adult that we can no longer tell? I was looking at this image last night:
and noticed the white patch on his right wing. I then watched the uber-brutal video that Sweep Commander posted below of the raven eating the WeGu chick. It looks like a similar patch of white is found on the right wing of that raven as well. Could Hrafn be hiding right under our noses? Am I totally reaching here? A steady diet of metal and mead will do that to a girl. What do you guys think?
Friday, January 29, 2010
Island's western gull males remind desirious females that Valentine's Day is a ways off
Thinking I might have the opportunity to document some early mating, I recorded this female, the smaller gull on the left, trying to entice her male. She positioned herself with her back to her partner and began the upward movement of the head seen in the video, along with the vocalization that accompanies it.This is how one western gull tells another that he or she wants food or sex.
However, just as I hit the record button, the male gull violently denied her, giving her instead a stern bite to the neck. This occurs in the video's opening moment.
We observed similar interactions among other western gull pairs, albeit without the violence.
Odds and ends
- Canada geese have arrived on Alcatraz. We can't be everywhere on the island at once, but our sense now that we're hosting around eight or so. The canada goose is divided into several subspecies and one of the next items on our amateur bird detective agenda is to find out what subspecies our geese belong to.
- The pigeon guillemots have also returned, seemingly going from invisible and absent to ubiquitous and loud in about a week.
- Brown pelicans now fly over the island with regularity. As recently as a year ago, pelicans not sick or injured avoided Alcatraz as if it were the center of evil and dishonor in the bird universe. While this isn't exactly a sensational observation, it's no less baffling for that. What has changed?
- Numerous brandt's cormorants have been seen on Alcatraz and in the waters around it. We can't wait to see if they return to breed.
- The common raven pair has been far less visible over the last week or two.
- The falcon had a bloody adventure recently. Stay tuned to MAGANRORD for BourbonHawk's upcoming post. Here's a little taste:
I wonder what she has there.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Looking toward the months ahead
This past week has been rainy and miserable out on the island and nearly entirely lacking in good bird activity. The weather is supposed to be like this for several days to come so in lieu of anything current, I thought I'd post a few pictures from last summer. After all, it's almost nesting season, and there will be nearly an entirely different host of players for the spring and summer.
These can serve to whet your appetites a bit for what we've got coming in just a couple of months.
Piegeon Guillemot
Fledgling Raven
Snowy Egret
Western Gull with Chicks
Two-Day Old Western Gull Chicks
Labels:
Alcatraz bird census,
breeding,
gallery,
gull,
nesting,
pigeon guillemot,
raven,
seasonal resident
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