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December 2007 - Volume 5 Number 12
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Live Weather Reports
Over the last couple of months we have been working on the installation of a weather station in the Gail Krantz Weathering Yard here at Avian Ambassadors. The station is configured to report live weather data to our web site and at this time the current temperature and daily high/low temperatures are being displayed on the home page with a link to a more detailed weather page. In-depth reports and historical data from our weather station is available at the Weather Underground web site.
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 Thank you Lou and Hank Schuyler
Just this last week I picked up a New Mexico olive tree from our friends Lou and Hank Schuyler in Albuquerque. Lou and Hank have a xeriscaped front yard at their home and the olive tree was just getting too large. They offered it to us if we would simply show up and take it away when their landscapers removed it. So, last Wednesday morning I drove into Albuquerque and the team loaded the tree into the back of my truck. Our neighbor John Dunbar had previously shown up and dug a hole ready to receive the tree with his tractor, sometimes the boy-toys really are useful! John and I planted the tree next to the weathering yard on Wednesday afternoon. The tree is a fine addition to the weathering yard area, thank you Lou, Hank, and John.
Notice our common buzzard "Snag" sitting in the weathering yard admiring the new tree!
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Featured Ambassadors 
Back in April I paid a visit to the San Diego Wild Animal Park to do a site survey and test our wireless release box systems for use in their bird show. While I was there I got to see a pair of milky eagle owl chicks (Bubo lacteus) that Animal Training Manager Kim Caldwell had recently collected from Atlanta. These are quite rare birds to find in bird shows so it was quite a treat to get to see them. The birds were just a few weeks old when I was there and starting to hop around their mews in the quarantine area. Just a couple of weeks ago I heard from Kim and the birds are both now flying in the shows. The photo on the right was taken during my visit.
Milky eagle owls, also known as Verreaux's eagle owls or giant eagle owls, are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa except in the Namibian desert and the rain forests. Like many large raptors they have a wide range of prey including medium-sized mammals, some large birds, fish, and also some carrion.
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Birds in the News
Here are a few stories culled from the world-wide-web over the last few weeks. If you come across a story or news item that you think would be of interest to Safari readers please let us know.
- California Condors and Lead The Californian legislation that I mentioned in a previous issue of Safari banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting in the range of the California condor was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger. The State Commission has taken the ban even further in legislation passed this last week. Meanwhile in Arizona hunters are being asked by Arizona Game and Fish to bring in the entrails of their kills in order to avoid condors eating them and possibly ingesting lead from the ammunition used in the hunt.
- Indian Vulture Seen Soaring Again. This short news item from Bangalor, India tells of the sighting of rare Indian vultures in an area where they have been missing for some long time.
- Traditional Medicine Threat in Africa. Muti is the term for traditional medicine in Southern Africa. The practices like many traditional medical practices often use animal parts for treatments. Poachers have been poisoning vultures to supply these practices, however, the poisons they have used to kill the vultures remain in the flesh and have been making the patients receiving the treatments very sick and in some cases killing them.
- Migratory Birds and Wetland Newslink. I received this link from my friend Jen Vieth from the Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center recently. This web site has a very large and well maintained list of links to all kinds of bird related news stories. Thank you Jen!
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What? No Photos!
If you are reading Safari in plain text mode you are probably not getting to see the photographs that the HTML readers are seeing. To view this issue of Safari in your browser please click here. Also, back issues of Safari are available on our web site.
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Support Avian Ambassadors
As Christmas approaches please don’t forget that making any purchase from Amazon.com can provide additional support to Avian Ambassadors. Go to our website and click on any Amazon link, just be sure that your browser will accept cookies. We are also Amazon Associates in Canada and the UK, so if that is where you live you can still support Avian Ambassadors. Remember to go to our web site and then click on the Amazon link for your country of residence.
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