Web Cam Updates

    As you know I have three links at the top of my blog for web cams. Two are for a Peregrine Falcon nest and one is in a beaver lodge.


    The beaver lodge web cam has been a disaster. More has to be learned about beaver activity for a web cm to be successful. The beaver keep on mudding up the camera and filling the hole made by the camera. I guess the beavers can tell there is a hole in the lodge and they try hard to plug the hole. As a result I will take off the link for the beaver web cam.

Beaver out enjoying a delicious green lunch.
Photo by Judy Boyd

    The Peregrine Falcon web cam is much more successful. They have laid three eggs and that's all there will be. The eggs should hatch about the end of May or early June. There is an excellent chat room on this web cam site. One of the ladies who lives right next to the tower has taken a great interest in Peregrine Falcons. she's a walking encyclopedia on these birds. She goes out of her front door and looks up to the top of the tower with her field glasses. This chat room is very active and the moderator is excellent. The Telus Tower is 100m ( 300ft) high. The regular maintenance crew hauls up the nest box and other gear. They attach the cameras and plug into the power source at the top of the tower. The platform on the top of the tower is about  4 or 5m (20 to 25ft) square.  It can get pretty windy at that altitude and it's amazing to see the birds cope.

300 m not counting the tower on top.
Photo by Judy Boyd

    So there's some good and some bad on the web cam front.

Peregrine Falcon Web Cam

       I have just put on a link to a Peregrine Falcon nest. The nest is one placed on the top of a 100m (330 ft) tower in Red Deer Alberta. This is the third year the web cam has been placed on the tower. The first year three eggs hatched and all three birds fledged. Last year none of the eggs hatched and later in the summer the female was found dead under the tower. It is suspected that she succumbed due to a poison. Tests are being done on the body to see if it was poison and if so what poison.


     Now, the link for the Owl web cam has not been successful. This year the owls did not choose the nest. That site is showing still pictures from last year's web cam and also still pictures from the beaver web cam.


      Enjoy the season watching the web cam.

Telus Tower Peregrine Falcon Nest Update

       I have had a link to the peregrine falcon web cam which is on the Telus Tower in Red Deer.

       This year things have not gone well with this nesting pair. They had five eggs. The pair ate three of the eggs for some reason or other. The other two eggs turned out to be infertile.

      This week two peregrine falcon chicks were found to put in the nest.

      A  video of this process has been placed on you tube. I can't get the link on my blog so I will give you a link to Natural Wise and you will find a link to the video on Natural Wise.

The Perigrines Have Fledged

        Since mid April I have had a link in the top right hand corner of my blog to a web camera which was in a peregrine falcon nest. The link has been well used, but most important, the web cam views were a tremendous hit. There was a comment space on the site so there was much conversation about perigrines.

      I have posted twice before on the peregrine falcons. Once on April 28 called Peregrine Falcon Web Cam Set up at Red Deer. And the second time on June 10 titled Peregrine Falcon Eggs Hatch at Red Deer.

       We watched as the five eggs were laid. Then incubation began. The incubation period is around 30 days so it was a long inactive process. Two eggs mysteriously disappeared about the middle of the incubation period. The three eggs hatched over a five day period so the one bird was very small and many viewers worried about the survival of the little guy. The young birds  grew slowly at first and then grew rapidly and developed their feathers. Feedings were often and rather gross. Now the nest is filled with left over bones feathers and blood stains.

      Yesterday the peregrines left the nest for the first time. They were away all day. Two of them returned to nest box at night. Soon they will not return.

     I found the whole experience very interesting. It was amazing to see how interested the public was.

     So in a few days the web cam will be turned off and we will be planning for next year. We already have plans to mount an outdoor web cam.

     Thanks to all those who came to the site I am happy that it was enjoyed .

Peregrin Falcon Eggs Hatch at Red Deer's Telus Tower

      The peregrine eggs in the nest on the Telus Tower in Red Deer Hatched this week. What excitement!


      I have a link on my blog to the web cam set up by the Red Deer River Naturalists(RDRN) on the Telus Tower in Red Deer. Since I am on the board of RDRN as chairman I have been more than a little interested in this venture. During the incubation I checked in about once a week. As time went on I became more intrigued by the comments on the chat line. Now don't get me wrong the birds are of major interest as well.


       The quality of the web cam pictures was not great. Color and detail were of low quality. One would think these birds are a brilliant blue. They are not. The female is a gray blue  . One has to use some imagination to get gray blue from the web cam . The male back is a rich dark brown. The birds look to be quite small but the males are 38 to 43 cm long . The females are 43 to 48 cm long. Their wing spans are from 90 to 117 cm. So they are a fairly large tough bird. One would not get these details from the web cam although many viewers did research and found these details. One would think that the eggs are a brilliant red . They are not. The eggs are more a reddish brown. So if you've never seen a peregrine in the wild , you probably wouldn't recognize it from the web cam pictures.


     I had the good fortune to live on the "Isolated Farm" and see many things in nature as the real thing. When I was a boy our chickens didn't come from hatcheries. The hens would quietly disappear and brood eggs on a nest. Sometimes we found the nest and watched the progress. Several times I was fortunate enough to see the hatch. There were many duck nests as the stubble was left in the fall. When spring farm work began many ducks were nesting in this ideal  habitat. So many times we watched the progress of duck nests. Robins were plentiful and we watched them hatch as well. When you've been fortunate to see the real thing, one wonders what kind of perception people take away from TV and web cams which do not accurately represent the natural conditions.


     It was also interesting to note how the "chatters" looked at the birds as if they thought like humans!  Comments relating to birth and children were interesting. So our perception of the birds is clouded by our own perception. It's difficult to make ourselves think as a bird or even imagine how a bird thinks. I was a teacher. I don't think we did a very good job of thinking as children would see the world. Or for that matter men and women have a different make up and we find it difficult to understand one another at times. "Men Are From Mars and Women are from Venus" was a very interesting read. Each bird species has it's own psychological make up which it receives from it's gene make up. As an aside , since they can now do gene studies they think the falcons are closer to the parrot family than the hawk family.


        Now that the eggs have hatched there is much more action in the nest. To watch the behaviour of these birds as they care for their young is fascinating and there is much that can be learned. Many people have been drawn to this site and their interest an knowledge has grown. I hope that some of these people will now get into the field with their new found knowledge.