Friday Links

It's time to share fun things found via Twitter and Facebook or share links people would like me to share. First, note that there is one spanky blog contest going on in the form of Swarovski & Birdchick's Digiscoper of the Year contest.  You have nothing to lose and a fabulous pair of ELs to win (among other prizes)--also the winners in my contest are automatically entered in Swarovski's worldwide Digiscoper of the Year contest with an even bigger prize.  You don't have to have a Swarovski scope (you don't even have to own the scope, you could borrow a friend's scope) and get out and take some shots.

Holy Old Crap!  The BBC reports that a nest over 2,500 years old has been found and they are still in use!  That's right, gyrfalcon nests in Greenland have been examined, the years of excrement around the nest has been measured (some almost 2m deep) and carbon tested the results are startling.  Read the article. They even found a feather from a gyrfalcon that was over 600 years old!  Crazy!

A couple of people have sent me stories about sandhill cranes in Florida regularly getting injured by golf balls--who knew?  An organization known as Save Our Seabirds has been working with a taxidermist to outfit some who need them with prosthetic legs.  See the a leg here and a sandhill crane with a fake leg here.  Read the news store here.

For your daily chuckle, a blogger had call to say, "Um waiter, there's a hawk in my soup."

If you love British humor, you'll love this spoof of Birds of Britain. If you're at work, you may want to use headphones, there could be some fowl language ahead (har).

Remember Golden Eagle 42--on of the golden eagles who winters along the Mississippi River on the Minnesota/Wisconsing boarder?  If you're new, he was found caught in a leg hold trap (those really need to be banned) and underwent treatment at The Raptor Center and was released in early spring with a satellite transmitter in the hopes of learning where some of these winter golden eagles go to breed.

Well, according to my buddy Mark Martell, he just keeps going north and is probably going to be a bachelor this breeding season. Martell reports, "The golden eagle continues to move north. He is now above 62.8 degrees latitude and as of June 7 was about 13 miles west of Hudson’s Bay near Rankin Inlet. Photos of Rankin Inlet posted on Google Earth show an area that seems not so friendly to a golden eagle, pretty treeless."

New maps of his journey are posted here. He's gone in kind of odd directions since his release--he even went to Iowa at first.  By the time he made it to Canada, it was late but somewhat doable for him to breed.  But with all his movement, it's clear he will not be breeding this year.  Which brings up a question that is sometimes asked--does a stay in wildlife rehab throw off a bird for a year?  Or is he just taking the summer off.  As always, birds are leaving more questions than answers.