On the morning of August 3, the dove sitting on the nest was gone. A dove that may have been the male was seen cooing on a boat mast nearby the next day. Then that dove was gone too.

Beaky began shedding his wing primary feathers on August 12. He drops the feathers on his crippled wing first. Coots usually shed their wing feathers over a 48 hour period in late July. It is unusual that he is so late this fall.

Fortunately, the weather stays warm through the end of August. Bay water temperatures rise to the mid 70s, but normal summer south bay water temerature is 80 F.

Coots become very nervous while molting. Losing all their wing feathers makes them even more helpless than usual, and they may even hide for several days. Beaky becomes very excited of anything he sees, or fearful of anything he doesn't see. He seems to lose control of his feet, and may squawk and collapse onto his belly when offered food.

Beaky's broken right wing sheds feathers first, and then hangs down. He usually crosses his wingtips over his tail to hold up his broken wing.

Everyone who puts up a backyard bird feeder sooner or later runs into this problem. There turns out to be one or two species of bird (or any animal) that has the strength or agility to empty out the feeder in an instant and drive away all others. In this case, the mallards eat an unlimited supply of food, foul the water, and make a mess to be cleaned up every morning.

Beaky has his own solution. He is arriving earlier every morning several hours before sunrise.

The blackbirds finished their molt and have new feathers at the end of August. It is difficult to tell them apart from each other now. The old male's feet show the difference, but he still has all his toes.

Several years ago, the brewers blackbirds were considered to be too "wild" and nervous to make any sense of them. But now they come inside the back door to fearlessly forage for crumbs on the carpet.

This is almost certainly part of the cause of the problem with how birds are treated by humans. It is impossible to have any understanding of what birds are about when they are only seen as food, or vermin to be exterminated.

A female blackbird appeared in the second week of August. She seems to be no relation to the old male blackbird who chases her away if she comes too near to his food.

News Links

Heat Wave, Drought Create 'Grim' Crop Yields for Farmers in Plains, South PBS NEWSHOUR:New research by the National Drought Mitigation Center shows 12 percent of U.S. land is in the midst of an exceptional drought.

Frank Morris HARVEST Public Media:Out here in the vast open plains of western Kansas, severe drought has made irrigation futile and turned everyday weeds into poisonous traps.

Mouth Markings of Estrildid Finch Chicks efinch.com:There are different theories concerning the importance of mouth markings in nestling estrildid finches.

Man cautioned after rooks killed Countly Press Online UK:"AN INVESTIGATION sparked by the sale of rook salad at an Island restaurant, has led to a 45-year-old man being cautioned by police". Just unbelievable...

Top 10 Facts About Monsanto bestmeal.info UK:"Monsanto's dark history..."

Science and salmon The Sacramento Bee:"People tend to respect and believe in science - until it tells them something they didn't want to hear."

Brown presses NOAA for policing documents Gloucester Times:"U.S. Sen. Scott Brown Monday formally asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for all memoranda and documents used by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to reach his decision not to discipline or punish the then- director of federal fisheries law enforcement or any of his agents and litigators involved in the mistreatment of fishermen documented by investigators."

Toxins troubling in fish caught in local waters signonsandiego.com:"Moderate-to-high levels of pollutants were found in several local species, including various bass, perch, rockfish and shark. Contaminant loads were heaviest in San Diego Bay"

Coast Guard struggling to update its aging fleet /news.yahoo.com:"the Coast Guard has two new ships to show after spending $7 billion-plus"

Kerry joins Sen. Brown in push against NOAA gloucester times:"U.S. Sen. John Kerry has agreed to join Sen. Scott Brown in attempting to dislodge from NOAA and make public a suite of documents including those that then-Commerce Secretary Gary Locke relied upon when he "chose not to discipline" members of the law enforcement force implicated in carrying out injustices against the fishing industry."

Condors vs. power lines, and for once, the condors win www.mercurynews.com:"The $4.2 million job involves removing 46 wooden power poles and roughly 13,000 feet of overhead utility lines between now and December in Monterey County on the south side of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park."

Wildlife Protective Devices for Arresters www.arresterworks.com:"The term wildlife protective device (WPD) is relatively new to the industry and refers to any device that is used on power systems to reduce the effect of wildlife on system outages."

Rook salad off Isle of Wight pub menu on police advice www.bbc.co.uk/news:"An Isle of Wight pub has stopped selling rook salad on police advice.." The amazing details of this weird story!

The Salmon Doctors: Condition Critical thetyee.ca/:"As the Cohen Commission investigates the fate of B.C.'s fragile sockeye population, The Tyee publishes two excerpts from Jude Isabella's soon-to-be-published Salmon: A Scientific Memoir, a science writer's look at the relationship between salmon and humans...

Sockeye Feel the Heat thetyee.ca/:"Global warming cranks up stress on salmon. Scientists are scrambling to identify what the heat's unleashed. Second in a two-part series.

Greenpeace Misses the Boat with Grotesque Anti-Tuna Fishing Video www.treehugger.com:"Greenpeace often plays the extremist of the environmental movement- the organization with goals that we green-minded folks appreciate, but with methods, often of dubious legality, that can make us cringe...

Tracy Aviary - "anti" to pet bird keeping? - August 19, 2011 letter to Tim Brown jonathanshome.blogspot.com:

Plover-harassing dog costly www.owensoundsuntimes.com:A Wasaga Beach man learned a costly lesson after his dog chased piping plovers at Wasaga Beach Provincial Park.

The Sopranos with feathers www.sciencenews.org:Stories from a day of bird searching

Rookery Rooks merlintherook.webs.com:Rooks (UK)

Calls for Puget Sound cleanup calls intensify; shellfish farms affected Anchorage Daily News:Nearly every time heavy rain falls in north Puget Sound, high levels of fecal bacteria flow into Samish Bay, disrupting work at Taylor Shellfish Farms, the largest shellfish producer in the United States.

Murre Seabird Chicks Hatch for the First Time in 100 Years on Channel Islands www.abcbirds.org:"Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Park Service (NPS) recently discovered that Common Murre chicks had hatched on the Channel Islands for the first time since 1912."

Obama shakes up gun agency over botched Mexico sting news.yahoo.com:"The Obama administration announced on Tuesday a major shake-up of the U.S. agency that botched an attempt to track weapons smuggled to drug cartels in Mexico after guns were allowed to flow freely over the border."....You can't build a law enforcement agency based on liberal politics and the news media...

The Magazine For West Coast Sportsmen! www.fishsniffer.com:Read the next link below:

Brown Appoints Chuck Bonham as New DFG Director www.californiaprogressreport.com:When there is a problem with fishing, now you know who's fault it is...

OutTakes

(Use your mouse cursor to read the titles)

Quote

"Raven mutes are mostly a white secretion of uric acid crystals
from the urinary tract.  They aren't at all like chicken manure, 
which, though it smells horrible, is mixed with sawdust and fed 
to cattle, so that we eventually eat it indirectly. "

Bernd Heinrich: Mind of the Raven

Index: Home Background Coot Food Recipe for Coot Pudding Coot Misinformation Bibliography of Research Coot Calls and Movies Historical Summary Links to Important Sites Opinion

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