The Waukegan Webcam
Again, no pictures of note today of the MCC birds. Hercules caught a pigeon and a warbler while I was there. Same routine. She brings it in, Max comes down from skyperch, much vocalization ensues, Max takes the prey into the nest, Hercules flies off to get more. Max reemerges and heads back to the skyperch to wait.
When I got into work, I fired up the Waukegan webcam. Waukegan sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, about ten miles south of the border with Wisconsin and forty miles north of Chicago. I’ve never been to Waukegan but I have ridden the Metra Northline a grand number or times, especially when Jay, Kay and Hill lived in Evanston years ago.
For some reason, the train conductors loved saying the word “Waukegan” and would walk down the aisle before the train left, shouting, “This train makes all stops north and ends at WAHW-KEEEE-GAN. WAHW-KEEE-GAN!”
I guess it is sort of a funny word.
It looks as thought the Waukegan falcons have four chicks. These guys, you might note, are a lot bigger than the Evanston chicks. They hatched about a week or two before them.
The MCC chicks probably look about like this, as they are circa 17 days old now. The parents no longer overwhelm our chicks in size by day 17. The feathers that cover the body of the bird, called Contour Feathers, start to push the first baby down out. I guess it’d sorta be like human teething. The tips of the tail feathers should be visible at this point. You can see this stage here.
Chicago Peregrine Falcon Blog 