birds

[Steve Davy]

http://sonomawingsbb.yuku.com/topic/4911/California-Condor
California Condor

Trey Kropp - 2013/05/09 20:23:59 UTC
Big Sur

I caught a thermal with a Condor for five minutes. It came within inches of my glider. Thought I might share the video with all of you.

http://vimeo.com/65489912
]
California Condor #463

[Tad Eareckson]

Another refreshing contrast/offset to the Dell Schanze atrocity - also, to a much lesser extent, the stupidity and apathy of the...
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3597.html#p3597
...Sylmar crowd.
4:20
- You can can read the patagial tag - 63.
-- Not bad for one of the rarest birds in the world through a wide angle lens.
-- I thought Trey must've made a mistake but apparently White 63...
http://www.condorspotter.com/
...means 463.
-- A little bio on the bird from:
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/profiles.htm
Profiles of the Pinnacles Condors - Pinnacles National Park

Hatched at the World Center for Birds of Prey on 2008/04/02 and reared by foster parents, 463 was released into Pinnacles on 2009/11/24. 463 started out as and continues to be the most dominant bird of the 2009 cohort. He sometimes would crowd and push the other juveniles from the "best" perches while in the flight pen. 463 also began feeding before the other birds, with the exception of the adult mentor. Within his first year in the wild he explored most of the territory regularly visited by the Pinnacles flock.

- Note that 463 has dropped the gear to degrade the glide to stay with the glider a little better. Proof that he isn't there just 'cause that's where the best lift is.

[Tad Eareckson]

Here's the species of owl - Short-Eared - that Uber Asshole Dell Schanze spent at least seven minutes running down, possibly to its eventual death, on the west side of Utah Lake on the video that surfaced a couple of months ago:
http://ozreport.com/forum/files/owl_131.jpg

---
Wrong - Barn Owl.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/blog.php

Davis Straub - 2013/06/10

First flight for Pereguins!

What's a Pereguin?
What's it eat? Birds? Fish? Both?
How good an idea is it for it to take a flight?

Davis Straub - 2011/09/02 18:37:09 UTC

Concussions are in fact very serious and have life long effects. The last time I was knocked out what in 9th grade football. I have felt the effects of that ever since. It changes your wiring.

---
Edit - 2013/06/14

Nah, that was deliberate. But often hard to tell with rewired 130 pound Greenspot pin benders.

[Tad Eareckson]

Pat Bagley - 2013/07/16
Salt Lake Tribune

[groundeffect]

Now that's funny.

[Tad Eareckson]

And in other wildlife news...

On the way back home Monday evening I saw a two thirds size Snapping Turtle on edge of the shoulder of the highway and facing across. First I've seen in over a decade.

Picked it up by the middle of the carapace out of biting range but got a fingernail torn back by a claw. Lost a fair bit of blood and the pain was a little dizzying. Knew from long ago experience that one could get painfully clawed up that way but underestimated the threat and reached too far under.

Next effort I used a lot less grip under the shell and got the damned thing across the road.

Then it occurred to me that I might not have done it a favor. It might have just come up to sun itself wih no intention of crossing. In that case it would've turned around and come back - or tried.

Was relieved to see no crushed remains on that stretch of road this morning so either:
- it made it back OK:
-- on its own
-- with another escort
- I happened to make the right call

Note to turtle rescuers...

I used to relocate turtles I'd pick up from really dangerous road areas. A year or two ago I learned from a local radio show that that's the wrong thing to do. When relocated they spare no effort to return and their prospects for survival suck.

I wonder now how many I may have gotten killed by helping them out.

[groundeffect]

Tad, a good deed. I've done this too and have wondered if I had really helped. Just hate to see them run over.

[Tad Eareckson]

Tad, a good deed.

And, as usual, one that did not go unpunished - my finger still hurts.

I've done this too and have wondered if I had really helped.

Hard to go wrong escorting them across the road if that's their goal.

Just hate to see them run over.

But there's no shortage of psychopaths who love to see them run over.

Maybe a couple dozen years ago there was a Box Turtle on the shoulder trying to cross Harry S Truman Parkway at the dip at about:

38°58'45.72" N 076°33'28.99" W

I was headed NW and pulled over beyond it as a woman heading SE did the same thing. We both got out of our cars like mirror images and before either of us could take a step a SE bound pickup truck swerved over and smashed it. Both of us would've happily unloaded a banana clip into that motherfucker's back window if we'd been equipped to do it.

On the other end of the spectrum... I remember reading in the local paper about a sixteen year old girl severely injured after swerving to miss one.

When I moved into this area as a twelve year old in 1966 Box Turtles were EVERYWHERE. My Golden Retriever would bring one home and dump it in the garage a couple of times a week. When I started driving I'd hafta allow an extra ten minutes a trip for stops to pull them off the road. Now years go by between the times I see them.

On 2013/06/23 there was a half grown one trying to commit suicide on the same road at about:

38°59'00.85" N 076°34'24.02" W

By the time I could get my driver to pull over another half dozen cars had gone by but the last one stopped and a woman got out and took it across. (I guess one out of six ain't bad and that I should be thankful that either none of the others were smashers or, if they were, really sucked at their hobby.)

When Matt suckered me down to his lair in the late spring of 2009 I was on my way on the dirt road to the training hills when I rounded a turn and drove both right Passat tires over a four foot Rat Snake. I was horrified and jumped out of the car and picked it up but could find nothing wrong with it.

Took it to the hills with me and watched Matt's students practicing for unhooked launches and the snake was looking and behaving fine - although I was positive I had run it over. Took me the better part of an hour to detect evidence of a little injury but it was still looking great when I dumped it on the way back out.

And then several days later Dale of John and Dale Stokes was driving me to their place so's I could play with their birds. We were winding along the road behind a flatbed semi and were getting ready to rescue a Box Turtle but the last set of tires smashed it in front of us.

Sorry to end on that note but that was the chronology.

[groundeffect]

Says a lot about people willing to help animals. Great story about the snake at the training hills. Last summer I stopped a man from trying to kill a 4 footer White Oak/Rat snake at the lake where I walk daily. The guy thought I was crazy but I didn't care. The snake lived.