Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

View Exciting Owl Nests via Live Cams

Young owls are great fun to observe as they mature at their nest sites, such as this large downy Great Horned Owl.

Now, birders can monitor three different species of owls at their nests – Great Gray Owls, Great Horned Owls, and Barred Owls – thanks to live-feed cameras and internet streaming. In fact, you can observe the Great Gray and Great Horned nests simultaneously at their Montana locations. The Great Gray Owls are incubating eggs at their picturesque snag-top nest site, while the Great Horned Owls already have three large feathered nestlings. The Barred Owl pair is caring for three downy nestlings in their infamous nest box in Indiana.

The nest sites of the Great Gray and Great Horned Owls can be viewed live at https://www.owlresearchinstitute.org/ provided by the Owl Research Institute (ORI) and Explore. ORI also promises a new nest cam to monitor a Long-eared Owl nest soon, plus they will provide their annual view from the Arctic live cam at a Snowy Owl nest site when local conditions permit. In the meantime, you can review some remarkable video highlights from last year’s Snowy Owl nesting season as a bonus to the on-going live owl camera feeds. Read more

Wildlife

Hummingbird Magnets – Potted Flowering Plants

Hummingbirds feed at a variety of flowering plants, such as this Allen’s Hummingbird about to feed at a flowering tree tobacco plant.
When blooming, bottlebrush is an especially attractive flowering bush to a variety of birds including hummingbirds, orioles, and warblers, such as this Townsend’s Warbler.

Urban birders living in smaller spaces often have a hard time creating a birdscape, but as hummingbirds arrive, everyone can be helpful to migrating and arriving hummers by having sugar-water feeders in position – and there’s one more step people short on space can add. Potted flowering plants provide flower-nectar that is a great second offering for hummingbirds – try sharing a mix of flowering plants, vines, and even small shrubs that will add a lot to the beauty of your balcony, windowsill, or patio.

If you have more space in a yard or larger property, you can add potted flowering plants to add a new focal point, including the pots themselves, which can be used to accent a design plan. Potted plants are versatile in that they are mobile – you can move them anywhere in your yard, any time you’re ready for a change – and you can add other flowering potted plants through the summer. You may even wish add some hummingbird-friendly potted plants to add color and design element to your feeding station. Read more

Wildlife

Wild & Wool; New Film Exposes Die-offs of Bighorn Sheep

Bozeman, MT — The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), in partnership with Sitka Gear, has produced a new film that, for the first time, takes an in-depth look at what has been killing wild bighorn sheep since the 1930s, and has been slowing efforts to enhance populations of this iconic species.

The culprit is called Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, or M.ovi for short. It is a bacterium carried by some domestic sheep and goats that can lead to respiratory complications and death in wild sheep. M.ovi is not a problem everywhere, or everywhere domestic and wild populations come in contact with each other, but M.ovi has been identified as a pathogen in bighorn sheep pneumonia outbreaks. These outbreaks have resulted in sporadic and, in some places, large-scale all-age die-off events in bighorn sheep, in some cases with mortalities of 70% or more of a given population. What’s exacerbating the problem is these disease episodes also result in low lamb recruitment often for decades. Read more

Wildlife

Michigan: trees at higher risk of oak wilt now through mid-July

If you have oak trees – especially red oaks – now is the time to be wary of oak wilt spores carried by flying beetles.

From April 15 to July 15, oak trees are at high risk for oak wilt, a serious fungal disease that can weaken white oaks and kill red oak trees within a few weeks of infection.

“The guidelines against pruning oak trees during this period are a way to help prevent the spread of the disease,” said James Wieferich, forest health specialist in the DNR’s Forest Resources Division. “Unfortunately, many people learn not to prune or otherwise wound trees from mid-April to mid-July only after they lose their oaks to oak wilt.” Read more

Wildlife

Monitoring Bird Migration during mid-April

With some species, you can see daytime migrations firsthand, including Canada and Cackling Geese.
Many birds migrate at night, high above ground, making it hard to observe their migration flights, including many songbird species including Orange-crowned Warblers and Hermit Thrushes (all photos by Paul Konrad).

Bird Migration is really heating up, and there’s much more to come. Which species can you expect next? There is a remarkable tool you can use to prepare for new species that will soon arrive in your region, and when to expect the peak of migration for a given species in your region of the country – and more! Plus you can check continental radar screens that show weather-related migrations happening in real time or as recorded during the past several hours; you can even review last week’s migration radar info if you wish – on BirdCast. Read more

Wildlife

The Trick to Attracting Woodpeckers to Nest Boxes

Northern Flickers are the most likely woodpeckers to use an adapted nest box, but Downy Woodpeckers may be enticed to use a wood chip filled nest box just as readily.
The BestNest Classic Three Woodpecker House

Ready to try something new? You can attract woodpeckers to your property specifically to enjoy the activities of Downy or Nuttall’s Woodpeckers, Hairy or Red-headed Woodpeckers, or maybe a Red-bellied Woodpecker. Actually, Northern Flickers may be the most likely woodpeckers you can attract to a nest box. But woodpeckers usually excavate their own nesting cavities, and provide a high percentage of nesting cavities used by a variety of cavity nesting birds. So what’s the trick to attracting woodpeckers to use a nest box?

Because pairs of woodpeckers prefer to excavate their own nesting cavity, birders have learned that it’s best to stuff a nest box intended for woodpeckers and flickers with wood chips. If all goes according to plan, woodpeckers will “excavate” the wood chips from the nest box, not unlike they excavate pulpy dead wood from the inside of a dead branch or snag to create their nesting cavity.

NestWatch and other people in the know suggest packing a nest box intended for woodpeckers completely full of wood chips, and tamping the wood chips into the nest box to give the material a “soft-solid” composition, so a woodpecker can excavate the interior. Read more

Wildlife

SCI Shines Light on COVID-19 Impact to Wildlife Conservation

Washington — Safari Club International CEO W. Laird Hamberlin recently brought attention to the looming threat to wildlife conservation as a result of COVID-19 in an op-ed that appeared in The Daily Caller.

Americans are rightly focused on the threat that COVID-19 poses to humans. We are all thankful for the first responders and health care workers who are on the front lines of this crisis, and we mourn the senseless loss of human life. We are all cheering on the scientists and researchers who are working feverishly to develop and test possible treatments and a vaccine, while the rest of us remain at home and practice social distancing to limit the spread of the pandemic.

But the coronavirus poses another threat – to our nation’s wildlife. The threat does not rest in direct transmission of the virus to animals, but in an economic chain reaction that could deny the states billions of dollars in vital funding for the conservation of wildlife and habitat. Read more

Wildlife

NDA Debuts Online CWD Resource Center, FAQ Video

The New CWD Resource Center is full of videos, articles and information dedicated to education on CWD as well as relevant news and updates.

INDIANA, Pa. – (April 13, 2020) —The National Deer Alliance (NDA) has released a video on America’s most frequently asked questions regarding chronic wasting disease (CWD), as well as a full CWD Resource Center focused on providing important and accurate information about the disease in a format that hunters will appreciate. Read more

Wildlife

Michigan Public Land Cleanup Challenge

 

If you’re out scouting your next hunting spot, running dogs or just enjoying the outdoors locally, the OTG program challenges you to leave your public land better than you found it. Take part in this fun and easy clean-up challenge and be entered to win one of two $50 Cabela’s gift cards! Click HERE for details and guidelines.

How to Enter to Win a $50 Cabela’s Gift Card

  • Take a photo (or multiple) of your public land clean-up efforts and the litter you remove.
  • Like the OTG Facebook page.
  • Share your photos and a brief explanation of why you participated and what state game area, wildlife viewing area or GEMS you improved to the OTG Facebook page or via email to MUCC Habitat Volunteer Coordinator Makhayla LaButte at mlabutte@mucc.org.
  • Two winners will be randomly drawn on May 1, 2020. Winners will be announced via email and the OTG Facebook page on May 5, 2020.
  • Each winner will receive a $50 Cabela’s gift card.

Enjoy recreating responsibly! Please contact MUCC Habitat Volunteer Coordinator Makhayla LaButte at mlabutte@mucc.org with any questions regarding this initiative.

Wildlife
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