Happy Sunday folks!
PS. Our winter rains start usually in May.
My Other-Half reports that the swallows have returned.
Hello to Margobird and may I say Rothes and Mallachie are the only reason I have Google Earth. Such pretties they are and I hope we see them again when the time comes.
Sandy: I am glad you saw the Peregrine cam and you may want to check back from day to day as I saw bird activity there 2 or 3 days last week as well as today. Seems like late morning to early-mid day local time is best or I believe that's late afternoon to evening in the U.K.
Annette and Gary: Great to meet you and I'm sure we'll be sharing info and communications from here on. Are either or both of you avid birders?
Diane: Hello, indeed neighbor! Many thanks, no I hadn't seen the Indy Falcons but I've bookmarked the site for viewing as of tomorrow. lol! I've mainly been watching the Xcel Energy cams up in Minnesota and they provide superior video and still coverage during the nesting season, btw: http://birdcam.xcelenergy.com/index.html . Nothing like live watching baby Peregrines running around screaming and flapping their wings on a catwalk!
Also, I am currently engrossed with Sheila incubating her brood-to-be at Alcoa Angelsea: http://www.alcoa.com/australia/en/info_page/falcon_webcam.asp.
I've also enjoyed the cam at Richmond Virginia but once those babies fledged, that was the end of the good coverage and so sad too; they were absolutely adorable. http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/falconcam2008/2009/05/one-egg.html
Maybe Diane or you other folks had all this info before but if not, it's all well worth checking out anyway.
Cheers to all and thanks for making me feel so welcome!
Caerann
Chicago, Crook County (ha ha), Illinois
For those of you who may have missed it, Nimrod is now off on migration -- going strong to Brittany. For new people, I'll include the link to the Roy Dennis birds: http://www.roydennis.org/osprey/index.asp?id=82
Caerann: Thanks for all of the good links!!!
aquilareen: Forgot to tell you that I enjoyed your "defend our land and our mushrooms" story. Wonderful! Those rainfall numbers are s c a r y.
Annette: Haven't "talked" to you. Have you made any progress on the tile? Next week, I'm going to tear myself away from the computer and accelerate my own home DIY remodel. I'll stop boring everybody with my blathering. LOL
Thank you Caerann and Diane for the new links. A nice surprise to see another Aussie one. I have so many websites to check now that it is almost a fulltime job LOL So who wants to do housework anyway.
Caerann: Chicago? Crook County? Are we surprised? :-))))
I certainly didn't have any of the info/links you shared. Thanks a bunch!
I must confess there's not much I'm avid about (compulsive maybe). Can't speak for Gary, though we know he likes cakes! I just love being able to enjoy the many and various windows on the world that the internet allows and got hooked on the Loch Garten ospreys when they were chicks and we were all counting how many fish were delivered, when, by whom, and who got to eat them! Was quite a drama, I can tell you! I also like watching a live Russian webcam that shows a market square somewhere in the Arctic Circle where you see vehicles arriving very early in the mornings to unload their goods, even in the snow. Amazing.
AQ: We didn't go metric here. We tried, and they put up signs on the roads giving distances in both miles and kilometers, but then it all fizzled out. And here we are, or here I am at least, clueless about temps/measurements everywhere else in the world.
Diane: Meant to say before, but I've never seen an albino possum. Ours are a sort of dirty gray - and yours is - white?
AQ: You know that song "When the swallows come back to Capistrano...."? Well, it's a pretty little town halfway between LA and San Diego and the swallows return annually to the old Mission there. Come to think of it, where do swallows migrate to?
Australia went metric donkey's years ago. I suppose I am metric for most things, but lapse when using my antique recipes (best ones measure in "cups") and when thinking distances I always relate back to growing up on the farm. 6 miles is distance to nearest town, 10 miles to high school, 50 miles to city and so on. I confess I still use terms like "half an inch" or "miles away". Hm, I suspect I am not properly converted. I loved driving in Ireland - speedo on car in miles, signposts mostly in kilometres requiring much mental arithmetic. But some signs were in miles but they never said whether m or km. One confused traveller
Annette: The little possum on my deck is a brilliant white. In fact, he sometimes sits near the kitchen window, and his ghostly appearance can be very startling if I get up to get a drink in the middle of the night. LOL Also, you asked me about the hummingbirds. We have ruby-throated hummingbirds here. We have a huge locust tree that has trumpet creeper vines that go all the way up. The hummingbirds love those. I don't know if they have left yet on migration. The last time I saw one was on August 20.
AQ: I was in Ireland with my sister two years ago and was amused to see signs in English - and German of all things - reminding people to drive on the right (or was it left)? The other side, anyway. Regarding our California swallows, they arrive "on or around St. Joseph's Day, March 19, from their winter vacation spot 6,000 miles south in Goya, Corrientes, Argentina." Do you know where your swallows go?
Unknown said: Come to think of it, where do swallows migrate to?
Come to think of it, where do swallows migrate to?
First bird book I checked said that Welcome Swallows are "sedentary in Western Australia, migratory in south-east". Very helpful - not. Second book says "partially migratory, the number of birds migrating and extent of their movement varying from place to place".
Not much help for new chums like me. I guess they migrate within Aust. Maybe the info is so well known they don't need to record it . . .