Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Here’s the live bear cam at Brooks Falls, Alaska. I have to tear myself away from watching it. We have a slew of bears (yes, I know that’s not the right name for a group) standing in a stream to gobble spawning salmon as they try to get over a waterfall. Fall and winter are coming, and the bears need to fatten up. (Fat Bear Contest coming.)
The cam is live, and the bears are dining like kings today! I just watched a salmon leap right into the gaping maw of one.
The salmon are jumping up Brooks Falls in Alaska right now, and the soon-to-be fat brown bears (Ursus arctos) are at the top and base of the falls, waiting to catch some live sushi. Click below to see the live action. I find it mesmerizing and often have it on in the background. And in a few months Fat Bear Week will begin!
From the site:
Brooks Falls is on solar power and will be live whenever we have enough sun. Brooks Falls in Alaska’s Katmai National Park is the best place in the world to watch brown bears feasting on salmon as they swim upstream to spawn. Find out the best time to watch live and learn more about Katmai and its brown bears on Explore.org @ https://goo.gl/fhMmQy.
If you go downstream a bit, you get to the “riffles” where the marginalized bears catch salmon. Below is the livestream from that area, too.
The “riffles” area of Brooks River in Alaska’s Katmai National Park is just 100 yards downstream from Brooks Falls–and it’s a favorite spot of mama bears, their cubs, and young sub-adult bears. Watch live and learn more about Katmai’s brown bears on Explore.org @ https://goo.gl/5XcsHu.
Finally, a 4.5-minute video of old bear friends returning to the area, and a “best of” compilation. Lefty, Grazer, 503, and the famous 480, “Otis” are back. I believe Otis once won the fat bear contest. The competition for salmon is keen, but watch the livecams above: the falls are swarming with them.
h/t: Barry
This about as awkward a landing as I’ve ever seen a bird make, and this albatross must have been really embarrassed in front of that chick! The Northern Royal Albatross (Diomedea sanfordi) is limited in range during the breeding season:
Northern royal albatrosses nest on the Chatham Islands (Forty-fours Island, Big Sister Island, and Little Sister Island), Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands, and at Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula of New Zealand. The Taiaroa Head colony is the only albatross colony found on a human-inhabited mainland in the Southern hemisphere. When they are not breeding, northern royal albatrosses undertake circumpolar flights in the southern oceans, and in particular like the Humboldt Current and the Patagonian Shelf.
The video below is from Tairoa Head, and is from a collaborative Albatross Cam:
You can watch the 24 hour livecam here or here; it’s a partnership between New Zealand’s conservation department and the Cornell Bird Lab; the second link tells you about the collaboration. Here are some of the YouTube notes:
Flying for the Northern Royal Albatross is mainly effortless, landing can be a little bit harder. #RoyalCam chick had a front row seat to a ‘how not to land’ lesson.
Landing is challenging because of the narrow wings of the albatross, which do not generate sufficient lift to fly slowly. Their preference is to take off and land when it’s quite windy, which allows better control at slow speeds while using the angle of the wing and the speed of the wind to control the descent. However, on calmer days, things can get tricky, as is seen here.
Lucky for the somersaulting alby, recovery was quick and only the chick was watching!! Albatrosses are sturdy birds accustomed to periodic mishaps on landing, and true to form, this adult walked away and appeared fine.
Royal Cam is a 24-hour live stream of a Northern Royal Albatross nest during the breeding season at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head on the southeast tip of New Zealand’s South Island.
Below is a livecam of Joey, a rescued baby sea otter, and his friends, disporting themselves at the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre in Vancouver (I’ve been there!). As I write this, it’s snowing, and the otters are having a fine old time. And no worries about the animals: they’re being rehabbed for release, and are getting the finest of care!
Joey is actually a teenager now, as he entered the Centre in July. You can watch an adorable video of his early days here.
h/t: Jean
There is now an official university website for the Botany Pond Camera, as well as new social media sites and a YouTube site. The website is called “On Botany Pond.” There’s also a Twitter site (@OnBotanyPond), where the University can post duck and pond pictures, and a Hashtag site, #OnBotanyPond, where you can share your own thoughts and photos.
First the official website (click on screenshot to visit). The cover photo was taken by a University photographer:
Note that there are five links, including “Meet Honey the Duck” (I’m not yet sure that the picture on that page is Honey, but rest assured we’ll get it right).
Clicking on the LiveCam takes you to a 24/7 view of most of the pond (not all of it is visible, but what you can see covers most of the action). Or you can watch the pond live on YouTube at the site below, which is part of the website. Right now you’ll be able to see Wingman and his buddy swimming around, as the hens are still on the nest.
Fortunately, when I fell into the pond this morning (a first, and that post will be up later), it wouldn’t have been visible as it would be just out of view at the lower right corner of the screen. But you’ll probably see me on camera feeding and tending the ducks from time to time. Look for the old guy with shaggy hair tossing food to the waterfowl.
Note that the University’s first tweet on its site was a retweet of a lovely drake photo (Wingman?) by Arne Duncan (below) You’ll remember Duncan as the man who served as Obama’s Secretary of Education for seven years.
(2 of 3)#PhysicalDistancing nature walks, @UChicago edition#BotanyPond#duck pic.twitter.com/O27N3MK2v2
— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) April 21, 2020
Go knock yourself out, and in a week there will be ducklings.
Today they finally installed the PondCam that will survey Botany Pond. It shows almost the whole pond, or at least the bits where the ducks and ducklings like to hang out. I don’t think it’s movable or zoom-able, but you’ll at least be able to see the action and watch the ducklings and their moms (hatch date: about May 3). If you’re there at the right time, you’ll see me feeding them.
Below is Eddie, the awesome camera installer who spent four days putting it in, from installing all the electric through conduits to the basement, to installing the bracket and finally to mounting the camera this morning. I didn’t realize it would be so big, but now I don’t feel so bad that it wasn’t trained on the nests: such a big camera would have been impractical.
I’ll let you know when it goes live, which will be 24/7 on a website yet to be designated. I’d like to call it the Web(Foot)Cam, but the media people, who promoted its installation, may have other ideas. Can you suggest a name?
Kudos to The University of Chicago Media Relations and IT people for getting this done.
An iPhone photo of the camera in place, and Wingman drifting by:
Here’s a log in Pennsylvania, filmed by Robert Bush over a year. In this five-minute film you’ll see nearly two dozen species using the log. I particularly like the wood ducks and bobcats. Note as well the kingfisher beating its catch against the log. Thanks to reader Richard for the link.
Here’s some light entertainment for the afternoon: 11 minutes of a lovely Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) visiting an Ontario birdcam. I’ve added the YouTube notes (indented) so you can see when it erects its plumage, which is a stunning sight. Such beautiful feathers!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these in the wild, though I’ve mostly lived out of their range (map below). They are nonmigratory, and don’t seem to be near Chicago.
Well hello there! It’s always a treat when a Ruffed Grouse stops by the Ontario FeederWatch cam, and this individual isn’t shy about showing off its cocked crest and beautifully mottled plumage while strutting around the platform. You absolutely don’t want to miss when the grouse begins to display at 6:33 by fanning its tail feathers and erecting the glossy black feathers on its neck into a ruff!
Watch online with highlight clips and information about the birds at http://allaboutbirds.org/feederwatchcam
Thanks to Perky-Pet for helping to make the Ontario FeederWatch Cam possible! The FeederWatch cam is located in a residential neighborhood in Manitouwadge, Ontario. This northern site is an excellent location to see winter finches like redpolls and grosbeaks as well as two species of Jays and even Ruffed Grouse!
The feeders sit in the middle of a large backyard with a large birch tree that the birds love, as well as a mixed stand of conifers and several fruit and berry producing shrubs. There’s a small swamp just beyond the backyard as well as larger stands of woods and a small lake.The feeder system is the product of the camera hosts’ ingenuity, making use of plastic piping to support the feeders high enough above ground to foil the occasional squirrel, and a rotating set of feeders that provide black oil sunflower seeds, nyjer seed, whole and shelled peanuts, and peanut butter suet in a homemade hanging log to the dozens of species that visit.
The range map from the Cornell Bird site:
The tweet (h/t: Matthew Cobb), who adds about the video:
Amazing. If you rewind 30 mins or so you can watch the moment they find it! It’s 3km down! The poor thing’s body drifted all the way before becoming lunch!
WHALEFALL! The Nautilus team just discovered a whale skeleton on the seafloor covered in bone-eating worms, cusk eels, and octopus devouring this massive deep sea meal. Watch #NautilusLive as our science team gathers more data at Davidson Seamount @MBNMS: https://t.co/Ajj54YYX2Q pic.twitter.com/Jq9koQzvPh
— E/V Nautilus (@EVNautilus) October 16, 2019
The feed: Click on this now!
Reader jj sent a video of an owl and a hawk fighting for a nest. The owl eventually won. jj’s notes:
Perhaps others have sent these links; in case not, here’s a link to a cool video showing a pair of Great Horned Owls displacing Red-tailed Hawks from their nest. At the end of the time-lapse video, in which one or another of the pair of hawks makes several passes at one or another of the owls, the hawks seems to have won; but not, because now in the newly renamed “Raptor Cam”, there are owl eggs in the nest and a mother owl brooding them.
The live raptor cam. Owl won! It’s raining now, and the owl is complaining now. But she owns the nest:
RaptorCam notes:
Last year, we all watched live as a pair of Presidio Red-tailed Hawks successfully reared two chicks and the two chicks fledged the nest. This year we have an unexpected plot twist: a pair of Great Horned Owls have been seen visiting the hawks’ nest and look as though they intend to take up residence there.
This is not uncommon – this reflects the interdependence of species and the way animals in the wild often rely on each other for survival. In this case, Great Horned Owls don’t build their own nests; rather, they take over the nests of other raptors. Over the last few weeks, these owls have stopped by at night to inspect the Red-tailed Hawks’ nest while during the day the hawks, unaware of the nightly owl visits, continued to prep the nest for the season. Recently, there was a brief confrontation between the owls and the hawks where it appeared the hawks maintained the nest, but then during the early hours of February 5, the owls laid an egg in the nest, and on February 9, they laid a second egg. The incubation period for these eggs is about 30-37 days, so we should expect the eggs to hatch around the first week of March. Also, the hawks have back-up nests in the park and our wildlife ecologists are monitoring these nests to find out where they end up nesting.
Stay tuned to watch as the drama between the owls and the hawks continues to unfold.