That brings back happy memories.

I remember one occasion driving north in deepest Wyoming in June when I caught sight of four large birds coming the other way.

It took a few seconds for me to register that they were Pelicans. I just couldn't believe the size of them.

Happy days! :)

You were mistaken, Pelicans can't fly they're too nose heavy. They have stunt doubles for the flight sequences.
If they actually flew they would look like this...

I'd quite forgotten that there is a small colony of Pelicans on the lake in St James' Park, London.

I'd assumed that their wings had been clipped but apparently not.

One individual made a habit of flying to Regent's Park (London Zoo) and stealing fish from the Pelican enclosure there.



So, instead of flying over 4,500 miles to see these magnificent birds, I could have travelled about 40 miles and been home in time for tea.

OTOH I think it unlikely that I would have seen Bison roaming around Trafalgar Square. ;)

Link

The Hanover eagles' nest collapsed away to nothing, after serving its purpose. The family would only visit it every once in a while.

It was interesting to see the progress of the nest, and to realize: this collapse happened on purpose.

When they build, the eagles complete the basic structure of the nest with just sticks; then they start bringing straw/dry grass to the middle, and they keep on bringing that until the eggs hatch. That makes the nest comfy, with a safe resting place for the eggs.

When the nest is just sticks and a little straw, rain can easily just seep through. It drips away, and the eggs stay dry. But as the birds are are always bringing straw, it builds up. Eventually, the bottom layer stays damp with rain that has dripped through the top layers. After a while, that layer turns to mulch.

This creates a very solid platform. (It has to hold up to 75 pounds of moving/landing birds.) The original sticks are like the beams, and the straw/mulch is cement and planks between them.

As the youngsters grow, the nest "fills up" and the mulch bottom layer gets thicker. Now all that mulch is rotting the sticks away. Once enough sticks are rotted, the whole thing becomes unstable.

The timing of all this has been worked out over millions of years. The birds start with a stick size that will take 6 months to rot away - just enough time for the youngsters to fledge. They bring just enough straw to make this rot happen with the right timing. So the Hanover babies learned how to live outside the nest, and three weeks later, the nest collapsed. Hand of evolution.

Wow. I just learned a thing.

Yeah, I knew they built a nest every year and often in the same tree, but figured the weather destroyed the old one. I didn't have a clue it was engineered that way.
I wonder how that knowledge is passed down, think they Google it? :lol:

Nah, they'd use DuckDuckGo.

ah, well played sir!

The highest concentration of raptors in the world is a choke point in Mexico of the north/south fly way.
Just look up and see a thousand or more raptors of all types.


Crap, gotta watch on youtub

That's what I said, gotta watch on you tube. So click on the notice when it opens and it takes you to it.

So you did. Perhaps I should read these posts...

I'll be glad when the dog-lips GIF moves off the page.

It s not in the millions but Hawk Hill just north of the Golden Gate, has about 30,000 raptors from 25 varieties. pass over in a short time every year.
Its advantages are that it is only 100 miles from me and the folks in the area less prone to murder and hostage taking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawk_Hill_(California)

Ok how is this?https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ac95833f27.jpg

Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk

Those Hawk Hill birds join the other two fly-ways in the bottleneck at Veracruz.