Posted by Bob Kelley on April 29, 2003 at 20:12:51:
On Monday, April 21st Ted Fleming and I saw one of the pair on the nest in the Gifford Arboretum.
Today, Tuesday, April 29th. I received a call from Professor Carol Horvitz that she had found 4 dead
chicks on the ground inder a huge limb that had been ripped off the nesting tree by the severe storm
that passed through the UM campus at 5PM. There was also an unidentified decapitated baby bird
that was most certainly prey.
I met with her and we collected all of the birds. They are now in a freezer in her office. I will be
contacting Sonny Bass at ENP and Peter Merritt at FOS to see if they can be donated to a skin
collection(Archbold Biological Station comes to mind).
A sad ending to a most unusal event. One of the parent birds watched us from the top of
the Physics Building nearby.
It is hard to believe that 30+ years ago I was walking across campus when a dead Royal Palm being
cut down hit the ground. Several dead Hill Mynah chicks were ejected from the top. One of these
became the type specimen in Florida for that species(see Wolfenden and Robertson).
Bob Kelley