Bird Cams Around the World

Just terrible...

I just received this email update from Rob

"New Year's Greetings to all!

We have the old good news/bad news scenario, with the bad news outweighing the good. It was a rough end of the year for our juveniles. We lost Moffett in Cuba, Caley in Guyana, and Bea in Venezuela. The only good news is that we're getting Bea's transmitter back (very interesting story, told on her map page). We would have gotten Isabel's as well, but apparently a herd of feral pigs got to the patch of savanna where her transmitter was sitting out in the open, happily transmitting away, just waiting to be picked up, a week or so before our colleague Adrian Naveda-Rodrigues arrived on the scene. The pigs either ate the transmitter or stomped it into the ground as they turned that bit of savanna into a pig wallow.

The lone survivor of this year's crop of juveniles is Buck, our South Carolina bird. He's still in northern Venezuela, and still exploring, although he's got a couple of spots he keeps coming back to. Seems a bit like Claws.

Penelope is doing fine down in French Guiana. She should be heading home in March or April. The three adult males are all fine and hunkered down in very localized areas. They should head north in February or March.

Overall, the loss of the young is about what we expect, but we're delighted to have recovered 3 of the 6 transmitters that were on birds that died. That's pretty remarkable."

All the birds have new maps: http://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/Bierregaard/ ... _links.htm


--
Rob Bierregaard
Biology Dept.
UNC-Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte NC 28223

JAZZEL

Ive never felt so sad as I do today.That email is not how I wanted to start my day.Its been a rough day.
so sad to know they have been lost.But so sad about my moffet because I spent so much time with him
last summer.I have been asked to display my photography in March and am planning on doing a collage
in honor of Moffet.Although I still hold hope that his transmitter fell off and he is livin large in cuba.

Mvgirl, I understand how you feel, it's always hard to lose an osprey, but even harder when you've been close to them. I was at Moffets tagging.

I also was at Sheri's tagging in 2008 at the Woods Hole nest, she broke both of her legs before migration and had to be euthanized. In 2009 I had to pick up one of the Woods Hole chicks off the road, minutes after it fledged and was hit by a car (that didn't bother to stop) and killed instantly.

But hardest of all for me is when we lose our ospreys to shooting....to many and so senseless. And think about all the ones we don't see...it makes me sick. Rob, with the help of the Peregrine Fund and The International Osprey Foundation, is working hard on a D.R Osprey Conservation Project to educate people there about ospreys and stop the shooting. You can find out more about that on his migration page.

I'm hoping with you that Moffet has a bad or lost transmitter, and we will see him in Spring 2011.

JAZZEL

Thank You Jazzel,

Means alot to me.Ive been really blue since yesterday.Is a good thing ive got the distraction of the Bear on live cam or things would be worse.
I hate the idea of any bird being shot.I hate guns period, on deer or any other living animal.I hope he lost his transmitter.I always tried not to get him too used to me cuz I didnt want him to be too trusting for that reason.But then I think about things.If he was attacked by an owl would that be better to have to go thru a slow death or a fast one.It makes me shiver to think about it all.If he really is gone at least I will always have those memories of cat and mouse we played, or just sitting in the field below his pole hangin out with him.
That bird brought so much peace into my life.

No I know I didnt Jazzel,

Im hoping that his pack fell off and he was smart enough to stay out of danger.guess thats what Im trying to say.

Mvgirl....I understand

JAZZEL

I just received this email from Rob


"Greetings,
I'm following in the wing tracks of our Ospreys down to the Dominican Republic, where I'll spend some time with Jorge Brocca, the Prez of the Hispaniola Ornithological Society, and our colleague on our "Don't shoot Ospreys, they don't eat chickens" campaign. Also, rather amazingly, I'm going to get Meadow's transmitter back! A week ago I got an email from someone who has had the transmitter for a year. Of course, they claim they found the bird dead, which is probably true. What's missing from the story is that there was probably smoke rising from the barrel of their rifle when they "found" the bird dead on the ground. So why wait a year to report it? Seems that they didn't understand what "REWARD" means (it's printed on the transmitter). Someone translated and they got in touch.
Seems that the Venezuelan National Guard has decided to hand over the American spy device, so we should be getting that one back soon. Isabel's transmitter is still transmitting, but has refused to turn up despite two trips to the pasture where it's signalling away. I think we'll find that one eventually. Along with Meadow's, Hix's, Katy's, and Bea's, we may have an amazing 5 PTTs to redeploy this summer. That's a pretty significant ($20,000) windfall. Yahoo.
Our birds are pretty boring at the moment, but at this time of year, boring is good. I updated all the maps (Buck, Penelope, Ozzie, Hudson, Mr. Hannah) for their January locations. The adults should be moving north sometime this month. Penelope is due for her first return, but the youngsters don't seem to get moving until later in the spring. Buck will be down there for another year.

Stay warm.

--
Rob Bierregaard
Biology Dept.
UNC-Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte NC 28223


JAZZEL

I just received this update from Rob.

"Greetings,
Our adult males should be heading north any day now. We've had birds at nests for a couple of weeks here in Charlotte.
I haven't put up the maps for February yet, but for all the birds but Ozzie (Westport River male), just look at the January map.
Ozzie's making me nervous. He moved west a bit and found what looks to be a fish farm, very similar to the location where we lost our RI youngster (Conanicus) back in '08. In fact, it's so similar I thought it was the same place, until I pulled up Conanicus's maps.
I was just down in the Dominican Republic where I met with Jorge Brocca, the president of the Hispaniola Ornithological Society. We did get to see a few Ospreys, but there are not as many there as I had expected. The cynic in me says that's because all the ones that tried to stay had already been shot. As many of you will remember, we lost all 4 young that tried to overwinter in the D.R.
Jorge will launch our educational program late in the summer before the next influx of migrating Ospreys hits the island.
One bit of good luck did go our way, as someone contacted me right before I headed down there to report that they had Meadow's ('08 MVY youngster) transmitter. Apparently, they've had it for a year but only recently did someone explain to them what "reward" means.
Bea's ('09 MVY young) transmitter is slowly working its way back to us, while Isabel's is still transmitting from the middle of a pasture in Venezuela. My colleague down there has tried twice to find it, to no avail. I think we'll get that back eventually.
With the recovered transmitters from Hix and Katy already in hand, we will have 4 or 5 to redeploy this spring and summer.
Two are destined for adult males (RI and Westport River). We're hoping to retrap Ozzie and Hudson on the Westport and move their transmitters to new birds. We're also going to put a new transmitter on a male on Nantucket.
Penelope ('08 MVY young) should head north in April or May)."

Best,
Rob Bierregaard"

Link to OZZIE'S map



JAZZEL

DPOC Message board info...posted by Lisa (Webmaster for Blackwater)
Migrating info...
Our staff have told me they plan to put the lost water platforms up this week. I know one of them washed up on shore, but I think the others will need to be replaced with new platforms.
We lost three out of four water nests along the Wildlife Drive. There were probably others lost offshore that I'm not aware of.

My concern is how dependent ospreys are on artificial platforms. If there aren't enough quality nesting trees that suit the ospreys, and the platforms are gone in many areas, what do they do. I don't think it's as simple as finding another tree, because they weren't using trees to begin with.

What did Poole say -- something like 90% of osprey nests on the East Coast are on artificial platforms.
also...

I should mention there's a new organization helping with the placement of osprey platforms in the Chesapeake Bay area. The guy running this group used to do platforms for Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage:



This is very troubling to me to hear of the loss of nesting habitat/food for the 2010 nesting season around the world (Beth's post)

Beth, thank you for posting this very important update, and great link, I hope SGB sees it

Maybe you should post Ploughboys video, from our Finland Migration topic, on the DPOF message board...

Ploughboy PM'd me this video, it's over an hour long, not to be missed

"By the way, have you seen this film "HOME" "



"We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.
HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand"

DPOF members may like to see it, sums up more than most want to know, in an unusual way, but the end has the answers and hope

JAZZEL

Kitten, thanks for the update

Here's the complete update from Rob.

"At long last, two of our boys are moving north. Mr. Hannah (Nantucket) and Hudson (Westport River) are on the way. Ozzie should get a move on soon, with Penelope likely to linger for another month or two. Buck's down for the long haul, so we won't see him move for about 14 months.

Bear with me as I switch the website around to a new 2010 page. I've updated maps for all the birds (Buck, Penelope, Ozzie, Mr. Hannah, and Hudson) on the 2009 maps to include Jan and Feb locations.

Hudson is the first to get a map on the 2010 page. I haven't updated Mr. Hannah's maps to include his move north yet. Will get on that soon.

You can find all the maps here: http://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/Bierregaard/migration10.htm

While I was down in the Dominican Republic last month, I stood on the south shore of Hispaniola and looked out at the vast Caribbean stretching on apparently forever and thought about our young birds, driven by instinct launching off on a 30-hr journey into the unknown. It was a moving moment.

Meanwhile, I'm up to my eyeballs in Barred Owls down here in Charlotte. The breeding season is underway and we're busy counting eggs.

We've installed a camera in one of our nest boxes, so you can see a live feed from a Charlotte Barred Owl box: http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/index. Right now the bird is incubating 3 eggs, so not much will happen for a month, but once the eggs hatch, the camera should be pretty interesting and amusing.
Enjoy the long overdue spring!"

Rob Bierregaard


JAZZEL

Tonight I went to Felix Neck to take pictures of the crocus that were sprouting last weekend when I was there.
I found no crocus flowers as of yet.But to my pleasure on the way down the road I spotted a large bird on Moffets nest in the middle of the field.Could it be Moffets parents have returned? there were no crocus sprouting up so i started down the path that brought me to where I sat many hours last summer with Moffet.
As I got closer the bird flew off the nest.Darn.I didnt get a close look.Could have been just a hawk.
I sat down near the office and took pictures of a pair of Geese that have taken up residence there and after some time left to go to my car to go home.I opened the trunk to put my tripod away and heard that familiar cry of the Osprey.peep peep peep! YAY YAY!!!! Osprey are back on Martha's Vineyard.
Now I begin to recall that on my way crossing the bridge that goes over the lagoon, many many birds soaring overhead in the lagoon.They were dark and looked like hawks.Maybe so, But would hawks hunt over water?
Now im wondering if it wasnt a large group of Osprey as well.I got home and told my mom about it and she smiled, I went to my room and she brought me todays MV Times newspaper which i will share with you all an article.
did i say YAY YAY!!
http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/news/2010/03/18/birds.php