Alta! You obviously don't know how terrified I am of snakes. LOL! Anything longer than 1 inch is a snake in my book!

Caterpillar? Really? What do these caterpillars turn into? WOW! Kites?

Quote: altazena wrote in post #24

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They turn into tents... very handy for when you're camping.

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Another thing to watch: The cam has moved. Either it has slipped or there's a PTZ feature we didn't know about. Here is the whole screen, and you can no longer see the creepy-crawler tree trunk on the right side.

Now that we've hijacked the Cooper's Hawk site, here's one for Patti. Is it a worm or a snake?
It's about 10 inches long.

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Looks like an earthworm to me, Pop. They supersize 'em, you know.

Now, I must restore this thread to the CoHa nest.

A few days ago, I thought I counted five hatchlings in the nest. That does not appear to be the case now. I am pretty sure I can see four, but even that is a stretch. Last night, as Mom CoHa was feeding her chicks, one of the little ones took more than it could handle. It was a "laugh out loud" moment to watch the little hawk struggle to down what appeared to be the foot of a bird. The cam froze, and I was never able to see whether the chick finally got it down or maybe Mom came to its rescue. She is usually pretty careful to eat those parts herself and feed the chicks small softer pieces.

Quote: Pop6 wrote in post #28

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Now that we've hijacked the Cooper's Hawk site, here's one for Patti. Is it a worm or a snake?
It's about 10 inches long.

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There is big trouble at the nest today. Mom left the chicks in the nest alone, and they are struggling. They behave as though there is some type of insect or parasite that is tormenting them. They are leaping about and biting at themselves. It is very hard to watch. One attempted to escape the nest, only to find out s/he is not big enough yet. S/he clung to the side of the nest, then managed to climb back inside. Mom has now returned to the nest and is attempting to preen the chicks. Today I counted four chicks, although there possibly could be five.

Whether from exhaustion or relief from the wind, the chicks have spread out in the nest and each found a space where s/he can be reasonably comfortable. There is still slap-flapping - probably at flies - but at least they are not slapping each other. I just hope and pray their desperate movements won't propel one or more of them out of the nest.

OH NO! What in the world has happened?
I see some movement among the chicks but no parent is around. They are all laying flat on the nest.

There is no longer any movement among the chicks that I can see, except for flies. It is confounding that this has happened so fast! I hope the Wascana naturalists can shed some light on this situation. It is likely to be affecting other nests at the Science Centre. I know this is nature, but that doesn't stop my heart from breaking.

Just from reading the posts above and looking at the time stamp, it looks like this all happened in about a 4 hour window. So very sad.
When I was watching earlier tonight I thought I was seeing some movement among at least a couple of the chicks but now after looking back on my recordings, I see that it's just the big black flies that were moving and not the chicks at all. I think when r4 saw them spread out on the nest that is was about over at that point. I recorded over 15 minutes of a parent (Mom?) fly back to the nest. She/he sat on the side looking down at the chicks for well over 15 minutes. She poked and dug around in the nest beside them but she got no response from any of her chicks and then she finally flew away. She was flicking flies off her the whole time she was there.

R4 and Alta were exactly right about what was happening on this nest today.

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