Falconry Scotland includes befriending owls

girl with harris hawk

Jeanne the barn owl loves people. She calls out for them. I was worried my daughter was being too friendly. But the falconer assured me Jeanne would only give an affectionate nibble.

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Puffins near Portland

Puffins, one of the oddest, most charming and hardest to see birds to see in the United States, but it’s getting easier because their numbers on Eastern Egg Rock, a southern Maine island hit a record 148 pairs in 2014. Warming water temperature threatened the efforts of Project Puffin to bring the cartoonish seabird back to its lost colonies.

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Cardinals finally let me see them raise babies in Brooklyn

Cardinal Nest

Cardinals feed babies fresh bugs in nest you could see if you knew where to look in Prospect Park.

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Guide to Troubled Birds: showing birds as the jerks they sometimes are

Guide to Troubled Birds

Guide to Troubled Birds is the rare funny bird book that illustrates what any birder secretly knows: a lot of birds are jerks.

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Nest Quest in Prospect Park: wood ducks, herons, swans, cardinals, swallows and, of course, robins nest in the park

Wood duck mother and duckling

Something is going on with nests in Prospect Park this season. They’re everywhere. You can’t walk 50 feet in the park bumping into some adorable tableau of chirping baby birds. Half the trees in the park seem to be brimming with exhibitionist robin families. The big unusual nests this year are green herons and wood ducks (which are living somewhere near dog beach–but where they nested, I don’t know.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green herons are nesting on the lullwater and near the less-fancy bridge by the boathouse.

Green heron on nest by the boathouse. Babies are tucked under her wing.

Green heron feeds her creepy-looking babies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swans in the park, as if in defiance of a potential plan to wipe them out, are multiplying. They have two nests, one helpfully placed on an island by the ice rink to make for easy viewing.

The father swan normally spends his days chasing off other waterfowl, but he came and sat on the eggs with his wife. Apparently he was alarmed by a mommy mallard and her ducklings nearby.

Baby Swans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I havent’ seen barn swallows build nests on the boathouse yet, just in the tunnels.

Barn swallow nest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These robins are so desperate for attention they build nests at eye level, sometimes

Keep reading Nest Quest in Prospect Park

Elusive Cardinal Nest

Baby cardinals, so hard to find, have a weird red tint to their bodies. After years of looking I finally found a nest. The babies left before I thought they could make it. I’ll never know if they did.

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Dogs Don't Eat Warblers--in Prospect Park or Anywhere

Warbler Flavored Milkbones

Birders harass dog people in Prospect Park saying they disturb ground-nesting birds. But only six species nest on the ground here, none exclusively. Some aren’t even in the park in the summer.

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Green heron nest survived Googa Mooga

Heroic green heron parents endured days of hipster music and foodies when their eggs were about to hatch. Now two chicks are learning to eat regurgitated fish and walk on branches of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

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Meet my friend, the pushy cardinal of Prospect Park

cardinal friend eating

A distinctive male cardinal comes to whistles in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and expects sunflower seeds.

Keep reading Meet my friend, the pushy cardinal of Prospect Park

Googa Mooga drives off nesting green herons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosyfinch/6945114442/

Green herons annoyed off their nest by Googa Mooga, a celebration of hipster food, loud music and the selling out of public park land.

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