Greg and Kat's blog

After catching a record 9 juvies on Sunday with Greg and his parents (his dad was thrilled!), Adam and I went out to see whether we could do the same on Monday. Not only did we not catch anything, but the birds that were around my traps almost became lunch to a passing hawk. There I was, watching as the one finch that showed any interest in my traps the whole morning was about to hop into a trap, and then whoosh, birds flying everywhere. I looked up from my binoculars, and a small- to medium-sized hawk landed near my traps scaring everything off, and then immediately took off. I’m pretty sure nothing was actually caught – there were a bunch of sparrows around where the hawk landed. I think it may have been a Merlin. It was bigger than a kestral and had blue on its wings (Oli, help!) Anyways, it couldn’t have waited the 2 seconds my finch needed to convince itself that it really wanted to go into the trap. No…. it HAD to attack just in time for my bird to turn around and fly out. Dammit! Anyways, it was pretty cool to see a predation attempt.

Monday was not a good bird day at all. When I got home, Adam called from school and said that some of the juvies that we had previously caught had conjunctivitis. Apparently House Finches are prone to getting this eye infection because they get these external parasites that make their eyes swell up. I ended up going back to school and catching all of the ones with puffy eyes (5 of them), and isolating them so we can treat and monitor them. Crappiness. Anyways, they seem to be doing better (I hope it’s not just my imagination). Luckily it seems to have only struck in one of the large flight cages, but we’re keeping a close eye on everyone.

Caught 2 more birds today though. Yay!

Over the last week I’ve received another 7 bug bites (including 1 on my face!). Total bite count: 50.