Four For Four

 I believe this is the first time this falcon has succeeded in hatching all four eggs in the clutch.  

I think the bird on the right is the slightly smaller male, tiercel.  He has been very ably carrying out his support role, bringing food and guarding the nestlings when the female is off the scrape.

Fifty years ago it was not uncommon that all the eggs in a falcon's clutch would fail to hatch.  In fact, in those times many bird populations world-wide had gone into a disastrous decline due to egg shell thinning caused by pesticide contamination.  The raptors were especially vulnerable to pesticides, and populations including peregrines and eagles reached critically low levels.

The birds were granted a reprieve by a rarely achieved international agreement to stop producing and using the insecticide, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).  The peregrine population might still not have rebounded to a healthy level had it not been for the rapid development of captive breeding programs.  Today, there may be as many breeding pairs of peregrines just in the Bay Area as existed in the whole country a half century ago.

A History Lesson for the Speaker

 It was not particularly surprising to see House Speaker Mike Johnson at Columbia calling for the resignation of the college's president.  However, to hear him demand that Biden send the National Guard to suppress the pro-Palestine demonstrations seemed extraordinary to me.  I suppose Johnson was a child when National Guardsmen opened fire on the student protesters in 1970 at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine.  That seems a poor excuse for a national leader for such a level of ignorance or disregard about such an historic and consequential event.

Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller on May 4, 1970.         Photo by John Filo

Peregrines

 Follow the nesting of the Peregrines at UC Berkeley (article).

(Click the picture for the Berkeley Live Cams.)

Annie takes flight around Sather Tower, or the Campanile, in 2022. Credit: Bridget Ahern

The Costs of Homelessness

 A friend recently expressed the opinion that an appropriate response to law breaking by homeless individuals would be to lock them up and throw away the key.  The Supreme Court is about to weigh in on the issue.

It appears, judging from court records that a sizable portion of the homeless population is already incarcerated, though not with a sentence of perpetual incarceration.

Ethical and constitutional issues aside, there are some practical issues with jailing as a solution to homelessness and associated burdens to society.

Looking at just the economics, the average cost of locking up a person in Albuquerque is about $124 per day.  That amounts to $3,720 per month.  Homeless people have illness and death rates much greater that of the general population, so the monthly cost of incarceration may be quite a bit higher for homeless individuals than the average.

Another practical consideration is the current state of the City's capacity to manage the incarcerated population.  In spite of a robust recruitment effort the City prison system is perpetually understaffed, currently with around a 25% deficit.  It seems like policies that would greatly increase imprisonment rates would make an already difficult situation close to impossible.

The current Albuquerque budget for dealing with homelessness is $25 million per year. I do not think that includes the current costs for the incarceration of homeless individuals. In any case, the money expended clearly has not made any real impact on the magnitude of the problem.

It seems like using the funds currently appropriated for dealing with homelessness and incarceration might be better spent on just supporting housing initiatives. Aside from getting people off the streets, housing would greatly decrease the usually minor offenses like trespassing that often lead to incarceration of the homeless.

 UPDATE:

The New Republic has some interesting comments on the unavailability of affordable housing.  It turns out that that financial speculation is at the heart of the problem:

...In 2018, corporations bought one out of every 10 homes sold in America, according to Dezember, who notes that, “Between 2006 and 2016, when the home ownership rate fell to its lowest level in fifty years, the number of renters grew by about a quarter...”

Good Morning

 

Spring Morning

 I got out on the sidewalk about 7:30 AM for the purpose of making some pictures with one of my old Kodak folders.  While there I also grabbed a few shots with my phone which actually turned out a bit better than what was captured on film.

The historic Henry Mann house across the street was built in 1905.

Our bungalow is more modest, but I'm claiming historic status for it as well as it has made it to one hundred years of age.

Eclipse Rose

 

 

I thought I missed capuring anything of the partial solar eclipse, but found a shot lurking in my phone.  I think this shot was made with the eclipse glasses held in front of the phone's camera lens.