Kite Cam 8
The last White-tailed Kite chick had left the nest by the time I arrived at the scene on Wednesday morning. After seeing the size and vigor of this chick yesterday (see Kite Cam 7) I was not surprised. It looked ready. At the same time, experience with the other three chicks that left the nest earlier made me anxious for its fate. I checked the grounds under the nest tree and along the weedy strip where the other chicks had taken temporary refuge. No sign nor sound of a kite chick anywhere. The parents were also not in sight. The second nest in a treetop some 200 yards away had no occupant. I wondered if the kites had decided to pack up and go elsewhere.
In view of the empty nest(s), my effort at a crow deterrent felt like a day late, a dollar short. Among the various tricks for making crows go away, hanging a dead crow gets high marks in the literature. I bought a dead crow — plastic, to be sure — from amazon. It took some time to get here. This morning, a concerned hotel employee (the nest tree is on the hotel grounds) hung it up. The crows reacted instantly and noisily, see video below. I could not stay on the scene long enough to assess results.
