Spartan Stadium Falcon Cam

MSU addict wrote:

The Pantry wrote:Snowflake is becoming less snowy, and pretty huge.  Must  be a female

That was my thought from a few days ago - I looked it up, and their Facebook site says when they were banded that the youngest (who they named Pickles) is a male.

Mom better coax him out of the box soon or they're gonna need the jaws of life to break him out.

The Pantry wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
That was my thought from a few days ago - I looked it up, and their Facebook site says when they were banded that the youngest (who they named Pickles) is a male.

Mom better coax him out of the box soon or they're gonna need the jaws of life to break him out.

Don’t forget this one was three days behind the others. Tomorrow will be the third day from when the last two departed the nest, so I’m looking for the baby to take off tomorrow.

tGreenWay wrote:

The Pantry wrote:Mom better coax him out of the box soon or they're gonna need the jaws of life to break him out.

Don’t forget this one was three days behind the others. Tomorrow will be the third day from when the last two departed the nest, so I’m looking for the baby to take off tomorrow.

Baby? Thing looks the size of all 3 others put together. On the bright side for him, his pecker is probably big as his wingspan.

The Pantry wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:



Don’t forget this one was three days behind the others. Tomorrow will be the third day from when the last two departed the nest, so I’m looking for the baby to take off tomorrow.

Baby? Thing looks the size of all 3 others put together. On the bright side for him, his pecker is probably big as his wingspan.

Too bad his penis isn’t as big as his pecker.

Mom serving dinner personally tonight.  Last meal in the box?

And, a sibling just came back under the box. Very encouraging.

Is it me or is the box less covered in a rain of white shit than what it was last year?

pulling69 wrote:Is it me or is the box less covered in a rain of white shit than what it was last year?

I think so, too.

Fluffy though about it, but chickened out. More importantly maybe, one of his sibs (two sibs in the picture) thought about making the BIG leap off the roof - ran along it flapping his wings but did not go.

pulling69 wrote:Is it me or is the box less covered in a rain of white shit than what it was last year?

Probably, but there are 4 this year and I think it also has to due with a lack of recent rain.

Mom arrived to serve another box lunch.



Pickles is 5 weeks old and looks as big as mom.  Might need to change his name to Big Pickle.

MSU addict wrote:Fluffy though about it, but chickened out. More importantly maybe, one of his sibs (two sibs in the picture) thought about making the BIG leap off the roof - ran along it flapping his wings but did not go.

Pickles was actually out on the balcony?

The Pantry wrote:

MSU addict wrote:Fluffy though about it, but chickened out. More importantly maybe, one of his sibs (two sibs in the picture) thought about making the BIG leap off the roof - ran along it flapping his wings but did not go.

Pickles was actually out on the balcony?

Yep, early this morning - flapped his wings some, looked at sibs moving around, I really though he was going to go.

He came very close to falling off trying to get out there - which may be why he has not tried again.

MSU addict wrote:

The Pantry wrote:Pickles was actually out on the balcony?

Yep, early this morning - flapped his wings some, looked at sibs moving around, I really though he was going to go.

He came very close to falling off trying to get out there - which may be why he has not tried again.

Don't do FB anymore. Have you picked up any info there? Assuming one of the leg bands on each has a GPS tag. Are all the kids still around the stadium?

The Pantry wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
Yep, early this morning - flapped his wings some, looked at sibs moving around, I really though he was going to go.  

He came very close to falling off trying to get out there - which may be why he has not tried again.

Don't do FB anymore.  Have you picked up any info there?  Assuming one of the leg bands on each has a GPS tag.  Are all the kids still around the stadium?  

I don't have a Facebook account either (no social media really).  I visit their site as a past reference.  Most of the info there is not very timely and somewhat lacking, just the big events really. The last post was about the second bird fledging. This thread has much better info.

The video that Nordic posted has a lot of good info about the banding process.  The two bands are one (silver) from the USGS (US Geological Survey) that is for a database of all birds with unique numbers.  The other band they described as a visual band that is designed to be read with binoculars that identify the bird when seen somewhere.  

I am pretty confident neither would be GPS enabled as I believe it would then require a power source.  Probably not something a bird would want to wear due to size.

Something that I found interesting in the video Nordic posted -they determine a young falcons sex when banding by its size.  They said this is 95% accurate.  

I do know it is very difficult to tell a birds sex - other than species where the two are distinctly different (an adult cardinal for example) - even experts get it wrong as a birds sex organs are hidden in a internal chamber (the cloaca) unless of course genetic tests are performed.  

So if they determined that "Pickles" was a male from its size - someone need to go back to sizing 101.

Look at the build. Little wonder they're faster than all other species.

MSU addict wrote:Something that I found interesting in the video Nordic posted -they determine a young falcons sex when banding by its size.  They said this is 95% accurate.  

I do know it is very difficult to tell a birds sex - other than species where the two are distinctly different (an adult cardinal for example) - even experts get it wrong as a birds sex organs are hidden in a internal chamber (the cloaca) unless of course genetic tests are performed.  

So if they determined that "Pickles" was a male from its size - someone need to go back to sizing 101.

Not size overall, just the width of the leg, I think, which is fairly consistent for each of the sexes.

Back out on the porch right now. A lot of squawking and flapping.

And down goes Pickles. I think this was both deliberate yet unintentional.

Pickles hasn't gone far, I've been seeing a wing flap in and out of the camera's lower left.

I caught one just now fly in from the left and land on the roof. Not sure if parent or offspring.



Really not sure what I'm going to do with the extra spare time I'm going to have now.

They grow up so fast.

Floyd Robertson wrote:I caught one just now fly in from the left and land on the roof. Not sure if parent or offspring.



Really not sure what I'm going to do with the extra spare time I'm going to have now.

Just like true empty-nesters.

Floyd Robertson wrote:

Back out on the porch right now. A lot of squawking and flapping.

Thing was flapping so hard it might have been able to lift off if it let go of the rail.

Mentioned a peregrine chick on the roof of my camper years ago. It was maybe half the size of Pickles.

Pickles getting use to street roof life.

Too bad that camera doesn't have a joystick to pan around the roof.

Floyd Robertson wrote:Too bad that camera doesn't have a joystick to pan around the roof.

Yeah, too bad, Pantry.

The 12 hour recording time was running out so took some vids off the screen of Pickles jump from the throne and some roof life after his fall. PM me for where to $end via Pay Pal

The Pantry wrote:The 12 hour recording time was running out so took some vids off the screen of Pickles jump from the throne and some roof life after his fall. PM me for where to $end via Pay Pal

Do you have any barnyard animal porn? Asking for I.B.

tGreenWay wrote:

The Pantry wrote:The 12 hour recording time was running out so took some vids off the screen of Pickles jump from the throne and some roof life after his fall. PM me for where to $end via Pay Pal

Do you have any barnyard animal porn? Asking for I.B.

No, but sent Motown a milking vid link years back.

First time I've seen Pickles in 24 hours (not counting The Pantry's screen shot).

I'm not sure how well this shows up, but two of them are together.

Better shot

There’s a dead juvenile red squirrel in my neighbor’s yard and a tell-tale ring of feathers from a robin in my yard. The squirrel has had parts removed, including the top of his skull on a sidewalk. I’m wondering if it was too heavy for one of the kids to fly somewhere. The robin feathers in a ring indicate whatever predator got it stood on top until the prey suffocated, then carried it off. Gotta keep my eyes upward to see if the babies are close by.

tGreenWay wrote:There’s a dead juvenile red squirrel in my neighbor’s yard and a tell-tale ring of feathers from a robin in my yard. The squirrel has had parts removed, including the top of his skull on a sidewalk. I’m wondering if it was too heavy for one of the kids to fly somewhere. The robin feathers in a ring indicate whatever predator got it stood on top until the prey suffocated, then carried it off. Gotta keep my eyes upward to see if the babies are close by.

Shitty week to be one of those black squirrels in EL.

Couple of minutes ago, mom or one of the others had some prey under the nesting box, not a black squirrel though.

Floyd Robertson wrote:I'm not sure how well this shows up, but two of them are together.

I checked in about 2pm and saw 2 of them. Wasn't sure what I was seeing. One of them wasn't moving. Pickles put his foot on it a couple times like he was trying to wake it up. For a short time thought it was dead.

The Pantry wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:I'm not sure how well this shows up, but two of them are together.

I checked in about 2pm and saw 2 of them. Wasn't sure what I was seeing. One of them wasn't moving. Pickles put his foot on it a couple times like he was trying to wake it up. For a short time thought it was dead.

I thought the same thing for a moment or two, but it did respond to Pickles kicking it.