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Message from Deepthie
Read with great interest the post on Starling Murmurations. I had about a thousand of them in my garden this year in the fall, and because of the large number of trees in the garden, I could not take a meaningful video. The noise they made was truly deafening. However, I did take some photos and a few pics, when they rested on the trees for just a little while before they took off again.
Here is a photo – of some of them, at the local Awenda Provincial Park that is virtually a mile away from where I live. These flocks hung around in my area for a few days – and yes- it was a dark cloud indeed – thousands of them.
Osprey. Also known as the fish hawk, ospreys are raptors that are well adapted for fishing. The birds have long legs and large feet with specialized barbs on the pads, hooked talons, and a reversible outer toe. This allows them to easily grasp fish with two toes pointing to the front and two pointing to the rear. I took this picture few days ago in our neighborhood.
Sam
More Pictures from Eagle Deepthie
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These are pic I have taken over the years . The latest- taken Sunday Jan 12th- 2020- in Sedona , AZ.
Bald Eagle .– is a ‘sea eagle ‘ – and live near water, where the preferred food source is fish . It will become an opportunistic feeder- feeding on rodents, snakes, crabs, rabbits , carrion of road kills ( deer, ) when fish is not available. Like the Osprey- – it grabs the food by its claws — tallons – as they are called . They are curved , hook like , to grab and hold on to the prey while flying .
Eagles- and Osprey are NOT friends with each other as they compete for the same food source , and will harass each other , and usually the eagle wins the battle . I have seen this play out in REAL Life, on Georgian Bay, Ontario, where I live . Very interesting to watch this hide and seek game between the avian top predators .
Also- the Bald Eagle will raid nests of Blue Herons , for eggs and chicks – when salmon gets scarce in the salmon spawning rivers of British Colombia , due to various reasons , mostly due to increase consumption of salmon by human , bear and salmon wolf.
Eagles- have a Feast and Famine metabolism and will go without food for a few good days , like four days . It will gorge on food when plenty, and regurgitate it and eat it over a few days .
Nesting — Osprey- commonly will nests on human made structures- like platforms made by Osprey Society of Ontario , TV antenna, Telephone poles, like I saw in Florida . The nest that is shown in Sam’s photo is a man made platform for Osprey nesting . They will return to this same nest year after year . They will also nest on tall trees . Eagles- nest high up on trees – White Pine and Cedar, that grow near water , making large nests weighing many hundreds of pounds and will do ‘home reno’ year after year . Both species mate for life, and if one spouse dies, the surviving one will find mate .
Bald Eagle – considered as Sacred for ALL Indigenous Peoples of North America and Canada . Only Indigenous tribal members are allowed to carry Eagle Feathers across the US- Canada Border .
Bald Eagle– National Emblem of United States of America, since 1782, but it got almost wiped out due to DDT spraying in the later 1940’s – early 1950’s . Once DDT was banned , the population bounced back — Thanks to the efforts of Rachel Carson — look up Google on the Life and Times of Rachel Carson .
Largest population of Bald Eagles in USA- found in Alaska. Canada it is in British Columbia – where hundreds gather during salmon spawning season . They gather in large numbers near fish processing plants and garbage dumps in – BC , Delta, BC , near the Fraser River . There are Bald Eagle Festival days for BC , Canada, and for different States of USA, along the Pacific Coast States , during the month of November .
The historic Kadugannawa Ambalama ( wayside rest ) Then and Now ! Kadugannawa Ambalama is a historic wayside rest that is found – on the left, when traveling from Colombo to Kandy, a few metres before the Kadugannawa Hairpin turn aka Kadugannawa pass. Built during the early 18th century which is about 200 years old now. This ambalama was built during the English colonial rule of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) About one and half centuries back this had been a popular stopover for horsemen, merchants etc. traveling from lowlands to the ancient hill capital Kandy.This structure resembles the Kandyan Era architecture and is of archaeological value. It was renovated by the Ministry of Tourism under the technical guidance of the Department of Archeology at a cost of Rs. 300,000.00 and now this structure is considered a national heritage item of Sri Lanka.
In the past, when the only means of transport for most people were their own feet, it often took several days—and sometimes even weeks—to travel from one place to another. Because of the time it took for such journeys, travellers were often in need of shelter to rest for the night. Thus the ambalama was born.It was a simple but convenient place for travellers to prepare their meals and sleep. Most often they were built near a stream, and a large pitcher made from clay or stone—called a pinthaliya—could also be found near the ambalam for the purpose of fetching clean water.According to the teachings of Buddhism, the construction of ambalam was considered a noble deed—therefore in the olden days, the entire village community came together to build these shelters. The size and style of the ambalama built in a village depended on the wealth of its residents—on some occasions, even the wealthy nobles used their wealth to build these wayside shelters.
