Mother's Rainbow

My mother died in June and this rainbow followed me for the last hour the day I finally drove back home .





I had been crying much of the drive home and of course thinking about my mother and when I rounded a curve and saw the beautiful rainbow I felt somehow comforted. When the rainbow kept appearing and seemed to follow me for many miles I found myself wondering ...


Although my camera did not capture the second rainbow well you can see a whisper of it....

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Not Crows

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All photos on this page © 2008 CFinn


Lumpy
Juvenile Bald Eagle Begging


Photos taken on B street between Oasis and Wooded Campground on 3/02/2008 (mislabeled 03-01-2008).

This Juvenile was probably experiencing its first or second winter. I believe the more white a bald eagle has the closer it is to maturity. They are adults at around age 5, I think. This one had what looked like an abscess or tumor on its right foot so i called him Lumpy (actually I think it is a her). I reported it to someone at Sea Life Center who reported it to 2 vets and asked to send more pics if I saw him again but I did not see it again after I emailed them. I saw this eagle several times but do not recall if I saw it after this date.

TONSILS



This juvenile bald eagle I named Tonsils for obvious reasons. Tonsils begged piteously and persistently. His/her territory seemed to be around the USGS banding site.


Click pics for larger versions
Tonsils begged



and begged



and begged



Photos taken Feb 10 2008
Tonsils often looked directly at me just before letting loose a mournful "Feed Me!"




All of the pics of Tonsils were taken near the USGS banding site




photo taken January 9 2008 on the road just West of The Circle
Sometimes an eagle would sit near me when i fed sunflower seeds to crows. It broke my heart when one would start to beg and check out the sunflower seeds to see if it was something it could eat. I know that starvation is part of the balance of nature, but if i have any food when an eagle or other bird begs I will offer it . I watched adult and juvenile eagles eat bread when that was all I had - and to me that meant they were too hungry. In the summer I've seen them turn their noses beaks up at suet (the beef fat kind, not the bird seed) so you KNOW if they eat bread they are desperately hungry. Mostly if I fed the eagles anything at all I gave them hotdogs, suet, or cut up pieces of beef .


In the 2 pics above, taken 2/10/2008 at USGS banding site, Tonsils had been begging and trying to eat bird seed so I finally offered him bread - the only thing I had with me besides bird seed. Sadly, the young eagle gobbled it up like he was starving. I think winters must be very hard on our eagles.



This juvenile I also sometimes called Tonsils because I would get the two confused. Only this one caught its own dinner on more than one occasion much to my distress. The crows and gulls were none too thrilled about it either. But, hey, eagles have to eat, too.

One day when seagulls swarmed the parking lot where I was feeding crows the above young eagle - a 3 year old I suspect - caught a seagull. I felt like I had laid a death trap for the birds. After getting over my shock and horror I recorded the eagle dining on seagull - thought my son might find it interesting (my son used to watch Discovery channel and the like and it did not bother him to watch the graphic footage of wildlife hunting. I doubt i will ever be convinced it is not a gender related phenomena lol.) After that day I tried to always bring hot dogs in case an eagle showed; I tossed a hot dog in one direction for the eagle and food to the crows and gulls in the other.


The above pic is of the devil that dared dine on Sea Gull in My presence. Twice! Here he is eating a hot dog I had hoped to distract him with. It did not work. Within moments of taking this photo this juvenile flew right over my head and caught a seagull. Which he promptly ate. In front of me. Ew.


Would you tell him 'No"?


BRUNCH

In the series of photos that follows a group of eagles conspire to steal the lunch that another eagle caught. The meal changes hands talons several times.



Larger pic

Larger pic


here is larger pic

BANDED BALD EAGLE

The Bald eagle below was banded on La Touche Island in 1991 and is more than 19 years old. The crow looks like it is a ballet dancer

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Birds with abnormalities

USGS' version of this flyer does not turn out well on my printer because it has a gray background so I tried to remove it. Original can be found following any one of the links below then looking at site map



Flyer is from the USGS Beak Deformities "How You Can Help site and is not copyrighted by me (stating the obvious here). They encourage you to distribute the flyer in your community. This is my backup copy for when my pc inevitably breaks down - removing the gray background was a royal pain and I do not intend to do it again. Ever.

USGS provides a recipe for nutritious Birdie Corn Bread. and building plans for a nest box to entice chickadees or nuthatches into your neighborhood


Photo taken 5/11/2009 in Seward, location unknown - probably the oasis or South SWP.

Dom Max has a slight indentation on the top left side of his head . His maxilla is elongated and curved. Not twisted ( that I have recognized anyway). He is comfortable with people and will cautiously take food from a person's hand (not just mine). He is demanding and will tap on my windshield to get my attention if I am tossing food and not handing him as much or as often as he thinks I should - he has narcissistic delusions of entitlement lol. Actually it would not surprise me if he could count. He does not demand I give him something every time but if I have tossed out enough for him to feel overlooked he will remind me. He can be quite aggressive when other crows get near when he is eating. He struggles to eat sunflowers seeds and unlike most of the crows he will take the smaller cat food before the larger dog food much of the time. He often must lay his head sideways to pick the food up because of the shape of his beak

Photo taken 5/11/2009 in Seward, location unknown - probably the oasis or South SWP.



Photo taken in back yard on 07/23/2008 (photo named with incorrect date - says 7/21/08)
It is probably just a preening issue or normal albeit unfamiliar to me, but the bulge on the Magpie on the lower left looks odd to me and reminds me of "Puffy" and the Starling Jay that had a tumor (Sea life center came and got him and determined that he had a tumor encroaching on his brain). One of the the magpies was limping, but I do not know which one.




Photo Taken March 2 2008 (mislabeled as March 1) on 'B' Street between Oasis and Wooded campground

This Juvenile has what looked like an abscess or tumor on its right foot so i called him "Lumpy" (actually I think it is a her). I reported it to someone at Sea Life Center who reported it to 2 vets. I saw this eagle several times but do not recall if I saw it after this date.

This photo of crows in flight was taken from my living room window on January 2 2008. Originally I counted 97 crows, but by labeling each crow I found 128 in the photo. No wonder I could not afford to feed them!

It has been a very long time since I took stats but I think you should expect to find between 2 and 3 crows with very unusual beaks in this flock and possibly more like 6 depending on the # of standard deviations and how you are quantifying the degree of deformity (does a particular bird's beak fall between two or three standard deviations of normal? ) . Maybe that is irrelevant but it seems like if you are studying etiology you have to take into account the natural occurrence of abnormalities.

Was counting the crows in the photo when I began to wonder how many actually have deformed beaks. I wonder if any unusual beaks have been reported this year.




The above seagull has rippled area on top of maxilla - looks similar to melted plastic




May 15, 2008 Back Yard

The beak looks odd to me - deformed?





June Oasis



This crow is MaxiGap and nests in the area I labeled "wooded campground" at the north end of Seward Waterfront park. Maxi Gap's beak looks a tad twisted at tip.



Feb 5-2008
This seagull has unusual coloring. It was the only one of its kind that I saw all winter







Another gull with deformity.





"Bent Foot" is normally near MaxiGap and RWWS aka W-W-. Note her right toes are completely bent under such that she walks on her ankle.


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