LIVE Falcon Cam - Downtown Richmond, Virginia

Discussion in 'Animals & Pets' started by Talon, Jun 23, 2021.

  1. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources has been reintroducing Peregrine Falcons into the environment for several years now and their Falcon Cam in Downtown Richmond where they've been releasing the birds is back online. From what my wife tells me there were originally 4 birds (a mother and three youngsters?) and two are present at their enclosure on top of Riverfront Plaza right now.

    Cool stuff - enjoy it while you can!

    Richmond Falcon Cam
    https://dwr.virginia.gov/falcon-cam/

    PS. When we lived in Richmond during the first release one of the Peregrines showed up in our backyard and we saw him/her feeding on another bird.

    The VDWR is also responsible for spectacularly successful effort to re-establish the Bald Eagle population along the James River below Richmond, and now it hosts the largest number of Bald Eagles in the Lower 48.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2021
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  2. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Great view of the surrounding area, too...
     
  3. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    We have a falcon that comes through this area from time to time. I always know when its out there by the ruckus. The falcon gets driven away by the crows that go after it and soon after the catbirds start in on the crows.
     
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  4. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ha. We've got some mockingbirds that are hell on the neighborhood crows, and I hope they stay after them. Every year it's a challenge to keep the crows off our fruits and vegetables, and I've been thinking of buying one of these decoys to help scare them off. They're smart animals so sometimes they work and sometimes they don't...

    [​IMG]

    I haven't seen the crows mess with our hawks and the occasional eagle, though. They seem to have the good sense to steer clear of those bad boys (and girls)...
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2021
  5. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    Our hawk hauls tail feathers when the crows get after it. Usually what happens is the hawk will go after one crow that leads it away as bait while three or 3 crows overtake the hawk from behind and start going at it one after the other. Pretty smart crows are. I've never had a problem with them as far as vegetables. I also have some buzzards that are hanging out pretty regularly. Nobody goes after them. Not so bad now that it is warm as I only have a couple regulars of those. In the winter months I can have as many as 50 regularly hanging around waiting for it to warm up as they sun themselves in the open field, on top the building, on top the house, in the trees all around the house. One day just before a snow came in, my neighbor came to the door and asked me if I was dumping dead bodies back there I had so many buzzards. There were probably 100 + that day. Even I was OMG when I went out and saw them roosting everywhere imaginable. The curse of having the only open field in a wooded neighborhood I guess.
     
  6. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Isn't that something. Our crows won't mess our raptors at all.

    Crows are amazingly smart critters. They'll get into our fruit trees, grape vines, tomatoes, you name it, unless I figure out a way to keep them out, and sometimes I've had to use their smarts against them. Since they travel in groups it makes it even more of a challenge to outwit them because there's usually one smart ass in the bunch who'll figure out what you're up to. I've found scarecrows and decoys to be effective for only short periods of time so I've been forced to resort to physical barriers to protect my fruits and veggies.

    Wow. We see quite a few turkey vultures around here, but nothing like that. I think we had a few nesting in the upper reaches of some of the pines near our house but the trees got damaged during last February's ice storm and I haven't seen them since.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2021
  7. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I live basically between two forks of highways. I have the bypass about 3/4 of a mile to the south (and everything south of that is farmland) and the straight into the city leg maybe a half a mile to the north. Because of the woodland (we are on the fringe of the urban area), there is a lot of roadkill they scour the highways for so we can get quite a few. Mostly black vultures (though we call them buzzards) and sometimes we will get the red headed turkey vultures (which we also call buzzards) . They aren't as bad as they used to be when we still had a trash dump in the city. Now we ship trash to an adjoining state. For reasons known but to god, they built the trash dump next the airport (literally at the end of a runway) so they used to have a lot of bird strikes. I was told that one of the USAir commuter planes almost didn't make it around on their emergency landing once about 25-30 years ago when they took a buzzard to the windshield and another through the wing and into a fuel tank which prompted the closing of the dump.
     

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