LAGRANGE — Drivers on the Taconic State Parkway were slowed last weekend by an unusual winged pedestrian. On Sept. 14, a state Department of Transportation highway maintenance crew was removing brush from the side of the Parkway in the town of LaGrange when they noticed southbound traffic slowing down and backing up. The culprit was […]
Tag: Hawk
Man Involved in Eagle Trafficking Faces Sentencing
A man involved in a massive wildlife trafficking operation that led to the deaths of at least 118 eagles is set to face sentencing in federal court. Travis John Branson, from Cusick, Washington, was part of a long-running scheme that trafficked eagle parts on the black market. The ring, which operated in Montana’s Flathead Indian […]
Eagle Parents Spend Year Nursing Chick Who Fell Out of a Tree, Forsaking the New Nesting Season
In what seems to be a never-before-seen phenomenon among the species, a white-tailed eagle couple has skipped this year’s breeding season in order to care for a juvenile who broke a wing. Hatching in April, unseasonably wild weather blew an eaglet from its nest on the Isle of Mull during the July fledging season. Its […]
Endangered Species – Cover Your Ears or Hide from the USDA’s Noise Harassment!
As if Endangered Species or any species for that matter could cover their ears, hiding. But after twenty months of “Bangs” and “Booms,” within hearing range of Endangered species, it appears there will be no relief anytime soon! With several Threatened species that have been observed in the area also facing the same assault. Many of […]
Cicada Killer
At about an inch and a half long, the cicada killer is one of our larges wasps. Their huge size makes them look dangerous, but they are usually not aggressive and do not often sting us. They are solitary wasps that live alone; they lack the hive-defending sting-whatever-comes-close attitude of the yellowjackets they are sometimes […]
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald – review
The arcane world of falconry is infamous for a snobbery that dates back to the medieval period, when different raptors were pegged to a hierarchical list of feudal stations. So the noble peregrine was for princes, the dainty merlin was milady’s bird, and – as we know from Barry Hines’s novel – it was just […]
Review: Bird Sense: What it’s Like to be a Bird, by Tim Birkhead
Who’d be a bird anyway? Chickens have bi-focal vision: one eye for the close-up work of pecking seed; one for the fox on the horizon or the hawk in the sky. Peregrine falcons don’t swoop directly on prey – as the crow flies, to coin a phrase – but in a wide arc, using the […]
Free-tailed funnel cloud (reprint from June 2011)
When Doppler radar first arrived in the area known affectionately to Texans as the Hill Country, the local television station meteorologists were understandably eager to show off the weather forecasting capabilities of their newest toy. Unfortunately, they got off to a less than impressive start. Night after night that summer, evening thunderstorms were forecast but […]