Before he and his brother Wilber ever accomplished this, they put plenty of study into a bird’s wing. On 12 December 1903 Orville Wright became the first human to fly on a motorized airplane. I wonder how George ever convinced the child’s mother that all would be fine! George is considered the first true scientific investigator of flight and the first person to understand the principals and forces behind it. In the early 1800’s George Cayley, and English Baron, experimented with wing design and developed the first glider that carried a human. He made drawings of flying machines that he thought could carry humans, but da Vinci lacked the technology to develop his machines. Those that have held the string that’s connected to a kite know the upward force the kite exerts.Īround 1485 Leonardo da Vinci studied and wrote about bird wings. Because a kite is fashioned like a bird’s wing, the kite continually lifts into the air, but needs force pulling it down to do so. If its wings weren’t fashioned like those of a bird, all the technology would be worth nothing.Īround 400 BC the Chinese developed kites. There’s so much technology that goes into, say, a passenger airliner its radar, communication and pressurization capabilities, and of course the huge engines that thrust its hundred or more tons into the air. I will always wonder if our world didn’t have birds in it, would we have ever developed the airplanes that take us around the world, and probably someday, to outer space. I, too, get a huge kick out of fighter jets passing by, and over those later years in NJ my cousin taught me how to identify the fighters, and I taught him how to ID birds. My cousin is a huge fan of human flying machines, and regularly watches fighter jet airshows or parks near a military airport close to his home, just to watch the jets come in and leave. He now lives in AZ, but we keep in regular touch with each other. I have a cousin I grew up with in NJ, and as we went through high school and then college, we became close friends. When one knows how fast a Peregrine can travel as it pursues its prey and how far one can travel during migration, seeing one sit in the same spot for such long stretches of time brings some irony to its otherwise rapid lifestyle. In the AM the sun sheds perfect light on our female, and I’d guess she enjoys the warmth on these recent, chilly mornings. This morning, Wednesday, 15 April, I did about 20 minutes of watching. Yes, not the most exciting of times, as evidenced by our female doing a lot of slumbering as she adheres to her very important job. Hello all! Here we are, just 5 or so days from our chicks hopefully emerging from their eggs. Hopefully when I’m writing ASK JEFF #7 I’ll be talking about the new chicks and answering all your questions. Even if eggs are quickly collected and analyzed, it still may not be determined how the egg died. Sometimes an egg gets a minute crack that allows bacteria to enter the egg. Maybe the eggs got chilled for too long and died. Peregrines, as well as all wild animals, lead a hard life. One example is one or both parents were somehow killed. Just like the actual number of days it takes a wild egg to hatch, there are many variables that could explain why eggs would be abandoned. Those eggs eventually break and the shell pieces become part of the nest substrate.Īnother question was asked about a clutch of Peregrine eggs in a nest near San Francisco. Especially once the chicks become more mobile, the unhatched eggs naturally get pushed aside. Yet both parents seemingly continue to incubate the unhatched eggs. Peregrine Falcon eggs in a nest usually hatch within a 24-hour time period, so it becomes evident fairly quickly what eggs won’t hatch. When the chicks first hatch, they must be kept just as warm as the eggs, since birds can’t regulate their own body heat until they reach a certain size and grow the downy feathers needed for insulation. One of the questions over the week asked what happens to the unhatched eggs after the fertile eggs hatch. These quick incubator changes help us understand how important consistent temperature and humidity are. From the time she hopped off the eggs to the time the male was settled on them took about 15 seconds. This morning at about 11:40 the male flew into the box to give mom a break. The humidity of the environment under the mother as she incubates can also affect egg development. For example, if the mother has to leave the nest to help the male defend their territory, the eggs could become chilled enough to lengthen development time. There are many variables that affect egg development, with temperature consistency being a big one. I’ll throw out the reminder that predicting when a wild egg will hatch is like predicting the weather it’s not an exact science. Greetings everyone! As I write this on Thursday, 23 April, we are into the third day since the eggs were due to hatch.
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