Monthly Archives: March 2014
30 March 2014 – no casualties
28 March 2014 – no casualties
27 March 2014 – no casualties
26 March 2014 – no casualties
24 March 2014 – no casualties
21 March 2014 – no casualties, Mourning Dove removed
Yesterday’s Mourning Dove had vanished without a trace today, so it lasted 1 day. I actually suspect that it was human intervention that removed it because predators so often leave feathers behind when dealing with Mourning Doves. This is one of those cases in which I would’ve missed the event completely had I not been here within 24 hrs of the collision.
20 March 2014 – Mourning Dove
I guess I spoke too soon yesterday: There was a beautiful, adult Mourning Dove dead along the south wall of the NRC this morning. Mourning Doves nest on and near the Noble Research Center, and I had a live bird very near this location yesterday.
I have a photo but the bird sustained a rather gruesome injury so I’ll not post it. I left the bird in place (after moving it about 1m out of the middle of the sidewalk) to conduct a removal trial.
Spring migration: casualties to come?
19 March 2014 – no casualties
18 March 2014 – no casualties
14 March 2014 – no casualties
13 March 2014 – no casualties
12 March 2014 – no casualties
10 March 2014 – no casualties
6 March 2014 – no casualties, but an odd story
No casualties today, but yesterday a student brought my attention to a plastic container apparently just inside one of the doors at the NRC that contained a dead Indigo Bunting. She said she had seen it there for “weeks”; I indicated that if it was really an Indigo Bunting it more likely had been in place for months.
The student procured the container for me: Sure enough, it was a plastic, lidded container in which it appears someone had used a knife to cut “air holes”. Inside was a near immaculate condition male Indigo Bunting, except for the fact that when I opened the lid the stench was close to the worst I had ever experienced from a little bird.
I don’t know what to make of this. Had someone found the bird alive, put it in a box to help it recover from being stunned from a window strike, and then forgot that it was there? Did someone find the bird and leave it there for me to collect? It certainly is a mystery. I cannot even say for sure it was a casualty from the NRC or even from a building on campus. Maybe someone found it at their home and brought it in hoping I would find it? However you slice it, I consider it to be an example of gross negligence, and I just hope the poor little guy didn’t suffer too badly from its ham-handed treatment.