HAPPY NEW WEEK, HAPPY FULL MOON, and HAPPY SPRING EQUINOX!!!
Last week's weekly chat thread is HERE. The code for this week's thread is WC160314.
The Full Moon is today, Sunday, and is known as the "Full Worm Moon". The Spring Equinox is Thursday, 20 March, in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, it's the Autumn Equinox for AQ in Australia. This is the day that I guessed EJ will return. :-)
I think this worldwide Osprey Range Map is fun. You can change the date to reflect the times of osprey presence in a region. You can also change from Terrain, Street, Satellite, and Hybrid views. Zoom in close to see personal osprey observations. (It doesn't zoom close enough to be a security risk to individual nests, in my experience with it.) You can also enter other bird species and see the global maps for them.
Birds of many species are reported to be on their way back to their breeding grounds here in the U.S.. The southerly winds are now in place to help them on their long, dangerous migration. This website tracks mass bird migrations using weather radar. Interesting!
Oh, and half a million sandhill cranes are headed back to Nebraska (U.S.) to fatten themselves up on the waste grain in the cornfields before they journey to their Arctic nesting grounds in one of Earth's great migrations. Here's an article about the global crane population (I thought Steve J might enjoy it).
Personally, I was very glad to see the pileated woodpecker pair on my patch this week. I was so relieved that they survived the harsh winter. The warm months wouldn't be the same without their noisy drumming. The male was drilling furiously in a tree by the creek.
Everyone have a wonderful week!
Read interesting BBC report on Cosmic Inflation.
Managed to get back to using Forum page to get here - had to clear cache not just once but three times in all!
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Annette: The servers have crashed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The worldwide clamor for the information crashed their systems. However, the press release has now been posted, and the scientists did, indeed, detect primordial gravitational waves (direct evidence for the theory of inflation), as I posted last night.
The press release itself isn't easy to access because of the overload on the system, but it's located here. When the science websites have had a chance to post their articles in response to the announcement, I'll post a link to the best one I read. Sorry you couldn't hear the news conference. I couldn't either. Darn it. :-(
How about this for an instant cheerer-upper:
YEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Now I can't use Rich Formatting to edit - just wanted to add that weather has turned quite grey!
The arena for another exciting and eventful season, I hope. Thanks CLARE
Thanks, CLARE - and LG, of course! Hope the Ospreys feel like a bit of gardening when they get back!
Margobird - sorry to hear that you are not feeling great and do hope you will soon feel a little better. How good of OH to stay home for you.
http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes/
RSPB Giving Nature a Home
Great to see that cam is on nest now, Clare. Will try and get it up.
Yeah!!!!! have the nest cam up, now we just have to wait.
super clarity from both LoL and LG cams.