Open House -- Open Fields -- Afternoon Appies,  Sunday, July 14, 2013, 3 PM - 7 PM

The Hancocks and their Sandhill Cranes etc. welcome our friends to our home and aviaries. 

1.   My wife, Mary, and I welcome all my associated friends, workers and wildlife associates -- all who have collectively over the years been so supportive of our efforts on many fronts.

2.  Our party is simply an opportunity for Mary and I and the Hancock Wildlife Foundation to personally say, "Hi, welcome and thanks for your support.  Here are some of the creatures we share the place with -- have a good intermingling!!"  Very few of the hosts bite - severely!!  Not to sound morbid but having gotten this old I want to make sure we celebrate our friends and supporters while I am still here.

OPEN  INVITATION:   To all our friends, mutual supporters, people we know personally and those, who just occasionally "watch" our cams or "lurk" our discussion forums or are associated with any of the conservation projects so dear to my heart, are all welcome.  If you know us or our eagles from our cams, website or other sites, associated TV or community projects, we want you here to celebrate wildlife.

The Hosts are David, Mary and Hancock Wildlife Foundation.

The invitation is to be to all our followers and friends who can be contacted via our different media:  directly by emails, via our website, forums and facebook outlets etc.

The  "Open House", hopefully yard and bird pens weather permitting, will be informal with people coming and going during the day from 3 PM - 7 PM.  We do have a number of buildings, from the house to various storage barns available for undercover gatherings if weather necessitates.  We understand a few people from considerable distance will be in our area during that time and we especially hope to meet and share these visitors with our local supporters.

To help Mary our Foundation Director, Susan Muraja, and my hard-working Project Coordinator, Karen Bills, will be on hand. Other helpers will be appreciated particularly if the weather fails us.

Mary and David will provide some food and drink.  Susan and Karen have convinced us to gladly accept local attendees bringing additional plates of "finger food" or their drinks so we greatly appreciate that contribution.  

The RSVP is very important as we need to know how many are coming & who is bringing what? Will there be 25 or 100 guests? 

If you are planning to attend it is imperative that you email karen@hancockwildlife.org and let her know.  Karen will give you the address and make up the guest list.

Thanks and we look forward to greeting and meeting old and new friends.

David Hancock

Question from Gretchen Butler, Flagler County, Florida:

Can you tell me the percentage of abandonment by the resident eagles once a camera is installed?

Great question.  The answer is not so easily determined or perhaps going to provide the info you wish because of the way you framed the question. I don't think cams are a potential problem -- cam installers can be.

1)  I see "no evidence" of the existence of a cam per se in the nest as a detriment to the eagles.

2)  I see 100% abandonment of all nests when a human has been seen in the nest by the eagle.  In many of these cases the reason for the human in the nest was to place a cam, collect samples, band or rescue the young.  To me the problem is that the eagle has seen someone in that "inviolate area" -- the eagle nest.  If the human intrusion was before egg laying or during incubation the eagles simply did not return -- ever.  The nest was immediately abandoned. Most have been seen re-nesting in the territory but in a different tree and nest.   This is not acceptable when I have to guarantee to the property owners that our cams or their placements "won't disturb those particular eagles".

Few people exude the spirit and the actual human output equal to what they espouse. My long time friend, Grandma Tess, exceeded anyone's expectations. Tess was and will remain a spiritual connection to everyone who ever met her. She tramped the arctic wilderness with a dozen rag-tag dogs into every native village and school, drove her great purple bus across continents time and again to talk with kids and teachers, communicated with eagles, white spirit bears and Eskimos like nobody else. She lived the message of peace, sharing and caring. Tess invigorated everybody she met and, if you weren't careful, you too would be caught up in the 'world's cause of goodness' that she spread everywhere. She made living a great experience.
 

RE White Rock: From the beginning I see the female eagle as different than last year.  She arrived on a different day, and has not laid on the same date.  She looks a totally different bird to me!!  Because eagles are driven by the light cycle and not by temp or weather, they are creatures of habit -- the light cycle drives that habit or periodicity.  Many migratory birds that have to arrive at the "variable moment" that the arctic opens up and reveals their "pond" have to be fine tuned by the local weather.  Not so with eagles.  We see them laying eggs, incubating etc. under a late snow fall.  The light drives their cycle and a little storm is not getting in the road of day-length!