Through the ages, a visual aid to the falcon chicks…

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch

 Day 1 to 24

Day 1 to 24 
Day 25 to 48

Day 25 to 48

Now that we have young visible chicks in one of our nest sites and more soon to hatch on the south side of Morro Rock, I wanted to give you, our readers, something so that you can follow the progression of the young either here at Morro Rock or on the Internet via the many nest cams you may find in the United States, Canada and around the world.

Be sure to click on the images above to enlarge them. This is a series of photographs, from egg to fledgling, and every day between. This series was done in Germany by a renowned woman who has since passed on. Cleve Nash and I both have copies to see how close our observations are, ie: egg laying, first day of incubation, first day of feeding, etc.

Over the years, with these photos and our observations, I would give us a grade of “A-.” Where we always fall short is trying to determine the number of young that will hatch on any given year. At best, it’s a crap shoot. Without seeing into the eyrie, or weighing the amount of food that goes in, forget it!

Today is Tuesday, and I spent five hours watching the nest site and saw three prey items go into the nest. I never saw a chick. Yesterday, I saw two young falcons. Maybe by Friday, I’ll see four!
Happy trails, Bob

Item:
Have some fun.
By looking at the photos that we post with our stories, compare the chicks to the progression series of chicks. See what day you think matches the age.

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First sighting…

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch

Photos by Cleve Nash

Actually happened May 11 and 12, 2013.

8:30 AM First sighting of young falcon chicks occurred on the north side of Morro Rock and Cleve Nash was there to capture the first photographs. I got there about 9:30AM and spent the next six hours and never did see one.

However, Sunday was another day and I am setting up a scope and getting Heather comfortable out of her walker into a chair (NEW HIP REPLACEMENT) so she can see the nest.

Then Cleve yells “Fuzzy chick!”

Needless to say I missed it again, but Heather and our new found friends from New York, Sue and Howard, did see the chick!

The nest sight is set in a cluster of three holes similar to what you would see in a bowling ball. Two holes below and one above. The eyrie being the lower left of the two. There seems to be a passage between the two lower holes hidden by tall grasses. After observing for most of the day at least two chicks have ben moving through this passage, but you can only see glimpses of them moving from hole to hole. Throughout the week, we will be seeing more and more of them. Cleve did say that the chicks age by plumage coincides with when we first saw prey taken into the nest on April 18th.

Happy trails, Bob

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Not white and fuzzy, but black and fuzzy…

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch

This gallery contains 4 photos.

All photos are by Cleve Nash Excitement, yes, but not because we have little fuzzy white birds, but a plump fuzzy black bear! In all the years that I’ve spent at Morro Rock, this was a first for me. I … Continue reading →

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No news is good news…

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch
5-2-13 20281

Shell Beach Rosie                                                                                      Photo by Cleve Nash

5 May 2013: With a threat of rain which will probably never happen, we are still waiting for the appearance of falcons on the north side of Morro Rock. The north side pair have had a steady stream of prey going into the nest by the tiercel for at least 2 plus weeks, but still no fuzzy ones to see.

Jack Morehead, one of the guides at Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, came by the rock to tell me “the pair of falcons that nest there have three young that are visible now.” This particular site has been troublesome and have not had young for some time. The previous years, have been plagued by having only half of a pair, either male or female or a failed nesting when there were two birds present. It is good to see they are in production again.

The falcons on the south side of Morro Rock continue to incubate eggs now in the fourth week. Other than a couple of visits from a juvenile female falcon which has been driven off immediately by one or both resident falcons. Things continue to progress with the new set of eggs in the secondary eyrie. The first clutch of eggs as you remember were in the “diving board eyrie” and were abandoned after 16 days of incubation. This second nesting has nearly doubled that time and “with a little luck and the creek don’t rise.” You know the rest of it.
Happy trails, Bob

Item: Rosie finds love.
At the Shell Beach nest site, a tiercel has arrived and taken up with the rosy-breasted female resident who has been on her own since the last winter.

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Looking and waiting…

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch
Red-tailed chicks Photo by Cleve Nash

Red-tailed chicks                                    Photo by Cleve Nash

With no fuzzy chicks to look at yet, we have been relegated to looking at a “rock” that once every few hours might show some movement. Otherwise, it is like watching paint dry.

After telling dozens of birders, tourists and surfers that “you can’t see any chicks yet,” not to be discouraged, a few of us took a ten minute ride north of town to see some white fluffy chicks. Three Red-tailed Hawks have nests within half a mile of each other. All of the young are sticking their heads up over the edge of the nests. The female of one nest sat at a distance in an old oak with a snake.We thought it time to leave so she could come in to feed the young.

So back to “the rock” to enjoy the boredom of incubation and thinking with great expectation, “Soon!”
Happy trails, Bob

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A spring gale…

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch
Photo by Bob Isenberg

Photo by Bob Isenberg

I’m still getting days with high winds which is not unusual for spring weather. Today 12 to 15 foot swells at sea with wind gusts up to 50 plus miles per hour. We have included our photographs of blowing sand and Coast Guard Station gale warning pennants.

I’ve been watching the three new chicks on the webcam at San Jose City Hall, California and I am envious. I can’t wait to see something here at Morro Rock that resembles something white and fuzzy like a chick, but we don’t have the privilege of having a camera in the nest site so we’ll just have to wait until they are strong enough to come to the opening and then we can get a head count. I love the suspense, but hate the wait.

Aside from the two falcons’ nests at the rock, we will have a black turkey vulture nest site to watch. If you remember last year, they fledged one young vulture.* I did see the adults copulating near the eyrie earlier this year, but like the falcons we won’t know until the young stand up behind the rock that hides the eyrie.

The Western gulls are staking out their territories and breeding has just begun in the last couple days. Nest building should start soon.

We have added a couple new pieces to our arsenal of equipment. Cleve Nash has just acquired a brand new 600mm lens which weighs 2 1/2 ounces more than the old 500mm that it is replacing. Also, my daughter gave me for my 72nd birthday the new two piece Swarovski 95mm spotting scope, 30-70 power. This has to be the Cadillac for birders. “Thank you, Molly!”

Morro Rock offers an up close and personal visit with peregrine falcons. If you get a chance while traveling the Pacific Coast, stop in and see them. It won’t cost a dime.
Happy trails, Bob

*See our post on August 7, 2012   “Welcome “Spec” to Morro Rock” http://wp.me/p3fFac-7S

 

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Force 9 at the north face of Morro Rock…

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch

Blowing sand
Photo by Bob Isenberg

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Now hear this…

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch
Not tonight, honey...

Not tonight, honey…                                                                  Photo by Cleve Nash

“Now hear this. Stand clear of all weather decks, due to high winds and heavy seas. Batten down all loose gear.” You can bet the peregrines are hunkered down with wind gusts to 60 mph, white caps and sand blowing across the beaches, but all is well with both pair of falcons.

The north side pair are due to hatch sometime this week. We are looking to see her take prey into the eyrie. This will be the first indication that the chicks have hatched. After that happens, we should begin to see the young ones in a couple of weeks when they come to the edge of the nest site to defecate. Teetering on the edge of certain death, they will show no fear and will do their business.

The south side pair after abandoning the “diving board” eyrie, re-grouped, re-bred, re-clutched and have been incubating for the last week. As much as we hate to see the loss of the first set of eggs, it gives us a wonderful opportunity to watch the north side chicks develop, feather out and fledge and then we will be able to see the south side young go through the same scenario when the north side chicks are flying.

Cleve Nash is working on a third pair in the county that is trying to set up housekeeping. The tiercel is making his best efforts to breed, but she has rejected his amorous moves several times so far. If this works out and she comes around, we could have babies well into the summer!

Hopefully, this weather that we are having will calm down a little and I will be able to set up some spotting scopes. It’s hard to write about something when you can’t see what’s going on.
Happy trails, Bob

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Mildly obsessive-compulsive…

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch

IMG_2338

Cleve Nash and Bob Isenberg

Photo by Heather O’Connor

Bob and I had been talking together about how to introduce to you our friend, the fine photographer, Cleve Nash. So that we would have examples with which to educate everyone, he has been generously donating his photographs. They cover all examples of the life cycle of our peregrine falcons along with other visiting birds. After a couple requests to Cleve, I received an email with the following. ~Heather

“Heather has asked me write a bit about why and how I came to take so many photos of peregrines.

It all began about ten years ago when my decades of photography and videography had distilled to a passion for capturing video of the Pacific and its mammalian inhabitants, particularly southern sea otters. One spring day I was at Morro Rock wrestling with a cumbersome but effective setup that mated a large professional camcorder to an even larger astronomical telescope when one of the local watchers suggested I go around to the south side and try my gear on the nesting peregrines. Just for the heck of it, I did and managed through sheer luck to grab some action that I thought was pretty cool. So was launched a mild obsession.

Photographing peregrines at Morro Rock is challenging. Except for a couple of days when the young first fledge, the birds stay very high. It is rare to get a shot of less than 100 yards. A chick in the diving board nest? With a decent angle, you’re talking 150-160 yards. A good camera with a big lens will get reasonably good results. But if you want the feather and fuzz detail of that nestling, you are faced with the trials and (few) tribulations of digiscoping. You no longer have the luxury of automatic focusing, and that 150 yards is filled with heavy, moist moving air that distorts the image entering your camera like heat waves rising off a desert highway. Add the Rock’s nearly constant winds that rattle your gear — at very high magnification, the smallest vibrations are highly magnified too — and getting a sharp, well exposed image becomes the holy grail and the great white whale for even the mildly obsessive-compulsive. Can’t wait for those babies to appear. Hope I can get some good shots for you.”
By Cleve Nash

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Taboo…

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch
Photo by Cleve Nash

North side falcon                                                      Photo by Cleve Nash

Observations continue on both north and south side pairs of peregrines. Cleve Nash has been mostly watching and photographing the north side, which are in about their second or third week of incubation. All is going well. The north side of the rock is good for photos of food exchanges and action over the large parking lot where Cleve is not usually shooting into the sun. For more general purpose photography, the south side can be better being that the birds are lower and usually closer with the sun behind you.

I am for the most part, set up on the south side. This pair of falcons continue to breed and frequent the “lower five” nest site which was used in 2011, after a previous failed nesting that year. Today she spent two hours in there, then out and about flying and perching. So, I believe, this is egg laying behavior. We should know by this weekend. During the time I have been at the rock this week, I have not seen them come close to the “diving board” nest site, since they abandoned it a week ago. It’s like the hole is taboo.
Happy trails, Bob

P.S. If you have read this far, please, remember to leave you email address in the box to the right to receive notice for each new posting of our ongoing saga.
Thanks, Heather

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