I got a tip from Janet in New York that one of her favorite bird cams is up on the peregrine falcons that nest on the Kodak Building in Rochester, NY.
That got me in the mood to check out some of my bird cams that I always watch in the spring and summer. About a month ago Xcel had their falcom cams up and you could see some adult birds from time to time roosting or preesing in the nest box, but now they are not active. The falcons on the Colonnade Building on my way to work are already duking out the territory so I imagine Xcel's falcon cams will be running soon. However, they do have a great horned owl cam which is a hoot (yes, bad pun intended) to watch. Last year it wasn't up because the crazy raptor decided to use an old squirrel nest instead of the owl box, but this year it looks like a female is incubating at least two eggs so far.
I'm very excited that The Indianapolis Star is going to have their falcon cam up on their website. I had heard a rumor last fall that some of the powers that be were going to nix the cam but it is up and running on their site and the peregrines already have eggs. There's even a blog to go along with it--everybody getting a blog these days.
I got an email from The Raptor Center, they are getting a big response from my post about people donating for the great gray owls. I posted it on the Minnesota birding listservs and it got a little out of hand. At first the idea was taken and run with, which I thought was great, but then it turned into a battle of the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union should donate to this or their board is just a bunch of jerks. It was interesting that it was just the MOU that was singled out to donate and not any of the other birding organizations in the state. I think it's mostly one person who for whatever reason wants to take over the MOU and make it into what they feel a bird club should be, but I just think, "good grief don't get The Raptor Center involved in your politics" and "if you don't like the way one particular bird club is run, start your own." Gotta love that bird geek angst.
Speaking of donating, word on the bird trail is that Bill Lane, that crazy owl researcher who lives out in the middle of the boreal forest monitoring Minnesota's boreal owl population and providing them with much needed nesting boxes is underfunded and under manned for his boreal nest box project this spring. If you can donate money or physical labor, I'm sure he would welcome it. Bill's a hard working guy and much like any other bird researcher suffers from not being able to communicate with others in a way that would get him more money. He hasn't learned the slick PR that would get him lots of money and I think sometimes his passion for the boreal owl gets the better of his mouth and he loses money for it.