Swainson's Hawks and fake tree branches / Douglas

[Dave Cameron]

This morning in the vicinity of University and Cresthill in Highlands Ranch, I had the pleasure of watching a Swainson's Hawk circling and taking long vertical dives, though never coming within more than 50 feet or so of the ground.  Another scan of the field he was above revealed the second hawk, presumably for whom he was conducting this display.  The second bird was perched on what looked like a dead tree branch, one of two, that was in fact bolted to a telephone pole, simulating a dead snag.  I'd never seen such a prop before, and can only assume that they were attached to the pole for the birds' benefit.  Clarification welcome.

 

Dave Cameron

Denver

[Martin Wolf]

Greetings, CoBirders,

When the Waldo Canyon fire took our house, it took everything with it that our son hadn't been able to grab on the fly... (We were in Europe at the time). He grabbed computer cpu's & laptops, & my external drive (as well as photo albums, file cabinet, wall pictures, jewelry...).

Anyway, I had my life-list in only two places: in an old (original) edition of the National Geographic Birds of N. America (burned); and electronically on my computer, using a now out-of-print (original) version of a CD-rom called Peterson's Birds of North America, "published" by Houghton Mifflin Interactive. I had made a print-out of my list several years ago, but unfortunately it wasn't up-to-date (although it WAS pulled out by Tim before the fire), and it is only a species list, whereas the electronic files include the where/when/notations. He was unable to locate the disc itself, which, with the early technology of those days, is required to access the life-list files on the computer.

Is there anyone out there who has kept a copy of that CD-rom field guide and could let me borrow it??? Or some digital wizard who might know how to access obsolete files without the software?

I only started using ebird in the last few years, and always intended to enter ALL my bird records dating back to 1966 when I started birding at 14 (which records I still had, "safely" stored away for later) but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Now all those records are vanished into gas & dust. A word to the wise...

So, please, if you can help, reply off-list to me. I would be SO grateful!

Marty Wolf
NW Colorado Springs
719-237-3798 or 548-1932
maca...@aol.com