Banding - Burlington Lift bridge - Wednesday May 23rd - 10AM
May 18th - 2012
With banding dates being scheduled fast and furious, (and recent conflicts that have arisen), several bandings have had to be re-adjusted. The Burlington Lift Bridge banding has been rescheduled for Wednesday May 23rd at 10am.
(file photos CPF)
Bill and I spent some time at the bridge today. Cirrus is very busy taking care of the little ones. She was either inside the box or standing on the outside corner. Mackenzie was just hanging around. Still can’t see the little white heads from the parking lot, but we should be able to soon.
I am so happy to report that Bill and I were able to count 3 little heads this morning. We set up our scopes down by the washrooms and watched while Cirrus fed the little ones. First we saw one head, then two and then finally we saw a third. Mackenzie was standing guard from the old nest ledge. At one point he had to show a Coopers Hawk and then a Turkey Vulture the way out of town. When we left, Cirrus was in the box with the little ones and Mackenzie was once again back on the old nest ledge.
We are excited to report that we have confirmed a date for banding the hatchlings. A banding date has been secured and confirmed for May 22nd.
We will be reporting the events as soon as the results are available.
Stay tuned…….
Saturday May 5th - 2012
It was still a windy rather cool day despite the blue skies and sunny conditions and the adult female was not giving much up as I peeked through the peep holes of the nest box this afternoon.
She was tightly down in brooding mode and doing a great job covering her new family members.
I was able to confirm at least two hatchlings, with a possible third hatchling. Although all I was able to see two tiny little white fluffy butts!
Sadly, I was unable to get any sort of full view of the hatchlings, so it was impossible to age them. As such we will have to take our best guess of their age based on our observations of the resident adults behaviour as it relates to their activity in and around the nest box.
Long before we had cameras installed on any of the nest ledges, it was (ans still is) very easy to identify the first day of a hatch based on the close daily monitoring that we do on each of the active nest sites.
As in this case, it is believed that the first hatch happened on or about April 30th or May 1st.
Until I can get an physical eyeball or a photo of all of the hatchlings together, there will be no way to positively determine their exact size, thus identify the biggest, (that will at this age), allow me to identify the oldest and first hatched. I can then properly age the oldest / first hatched and come up with an exact hatch date.
Stay tuned…………
Bill and I spent several hours at the Lift Bridge today. What a beautiful day to be out and enjoying Spring. Still no little white heads visible either from the parking lot or from down the road. If there has been a hatch, we should be able to count heads sometime this week, I hope. An interesting thing that Mackenzie has figured out is how to shop in the bridge. We witnessed him shopping in the holes on the Bridge. He would go inside a hole and the next thing you knew, he would bring out a squab. He ate some of it and then delivered the rest to the nest box. An easy day of hunting for him.
Bill and I just returned from a visit at the Lift Bridge. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick that we couldn’t even see the nest box, let alone any little white heads.
Although we have no firm evidence of a hatch, ie. little white heads, I’m almost positive we do. Bill and I spent some time at the Lift Bridge this afternoon. Mackenzie was hanging out on the Hamilton Cable Arm, bay side.  He landed once on the next box, had what appeared to be a quick conversation, and then returned to the arm.  Cirrus appeared to be restless up and down, up and down. She is usually not visible in the nest box. We went down the road by the washroom and she is definitely not laying low. She is up, appears to be mantling and definitely restless. Unfortunately it was quite foggy so we couldn’t get a clear view with our scopes. We will try again when the sky is clear.
We are now able to get to the Lift Bridge as the roads are open again. Yesterday, Bill and I spent some time there checking out the goings on. All is really pretty quiet. Cirrus and Mackenzie appear to be still in incubation mode. We saw a shift change with Cirrus taking over nest duties. Mackenzie was standing guard from the face of the Hamilton Tower. Even if there is a hatch, it will be a few days before we will be able to see the little white heads.
