Kathy and I had a fantastic idea for raising money to expand our Peregrine Prey Cam Project: we decided to rent out the coastal Peregrine Igloos during the off-season when the birds aren’t nesting. It’s prime waterfront real estate, after all.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well.
Admittedly it was a terrible idea, made worse by the fact that none of them understood the rental contract terms, so they continued to visit long after their bookings were over.
But the good news is that these unfortunate events inspired us to start running our Peregrine Prey Projects year-round, all night long. One of the benefits we are already seeing is discovering what kinds of predators are visiting the nests, which helps us get some clues about mysterious losses that occur occasionally. Nocturnal predators were always invisible to us, but now we are shedding a healthy dose of infrared light on them.
Not long after we set our first permanent cam at Bey & Lay-z’s nest, we found a raccoon was frequently sleeping over in the igloo. A careful inspection of the predator guards used to prevent them from climbing the tower revealed one had been breached.
Thankfully, Ben rushed right over with a belt full of tools and repaired all the guards before they started laying their eggs.
The result? This:
Congratulations to Bey & Laz-y on their successful hatch. Thanks to Ben for rushing to fix up the predator guards, supporters of The Little Egg Foundation for allowing us to expand our prey cams, and Kathy for being such a great leader of the Peregrine recovery!
And truth be told, we might have to thank the raccoon too. That nest was the cleanest I’ve seen in a long time, and I watched it licking every inch of that nesting platform on cam. Bey & Lay-z’s babies had none of the parasitic flies plaguing Bonnet Island this year, and there is a slight chance the raccoon constantly licking had something to do with it.
If so, maybe Airbnb’ing the nests isn’t such a bad idea after all.
As a bonus, I left a cam on the main predator guard Ben repaired to see how the raccoon reacted, which I recently retrieved. You might enjoy it if you’ve ever struggled to baffle a squirrel from a bird feeder.
Sorry little nitwit, but rental season is over!
Brilliant!!
This was hysterical !!! Very clever writing – thank you for this , it was a good morning read while heaving my coffee !! More so thank you for all you guys do collectively to make these safe havens for their intended guests and allowing us to be privy to something we wouldn’t otherwise experience!
Okay, birds will be birds, and cleanliness is not part of their DNA. However, thanks to Ben and friends persistence the survival of their fluffy babes will likely improve.
LOL LOL LOL … best post ever!