There have been many informative responses, like this one, to my musings about the roadside raptors. It seems the roads not only pose a kind of barricade that corrals the rodents, but also an excellent food source for rodents, due to the mowing and extra rain run-off that allows favored seed-bearing plant life to proliferate, while offering the prey little place to hide. Additionally, it was mentioned that such rodent high-traffic areas are likely to have rodent "latrines", where the urine trails would attract notice from a raptor's extended ultra-violet detection abilities. Now I understand why so many of the nests I've noticed along highways have turned out to be raptor nests. Thanks for all the replies. Linda Whyte
---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
