The Daisy Chronicles Day 16, continued

After having a busy morning with visitors – the Ring-tailed Possum, the Rainbow Lorikeets, the Noisy Miners, the Pied Currawong, and the Ravens – our beautiful little Pacific Black Duck Daisy had a very uneventful day. What a blessing that is – a calm, no drama day. If we could link the next 17 or 18 days together into boring bliss for Daisy, she just might beat the odds.

The forecast for thunderstorms and a drop in temperature changed periodically. The sky got dark and Daisy decided to leave the nest for her evening foraging 20 minutes earlier than last evening. She flew off at 17:51:55.

Daisy tucked and folded the down over the eggs while using her bill to scrape up leaves and nest material around the edges.

The sky turned dark. It is difficult to tell if there is any light rain falling. Despite the forecast for thunderstorms no thunder can be heard. At least not yet. The storms are supposed to last until 22:00.

My only concern is if all that beautiful fluffy down were to get wet. It would mat and shrink. Would Daisy have enough down to replenish it? so that it would completely cover those eggs like it is now?

Sadly, the male ducks do not provide security when the female is away like Canadian Geese. While the male CG do not help incubate the eggs, they do provide security and certainly help with the goslings after they hatch. Daisy has absolutely no help with either. With all the odds against her, she is really managing well this clutch. Each day I am becoming more cautiously optimistic.

Daisy returns from her evening break at 20:18:35. She spends some time on the rim of the nest drying her feathers.

It appears that the weather that was forecast did not do anything to damage Daisy’s down. Yahoo.

Just look at Daisy in all that down! It shows up so much better with the IR camera.

It is 04:42 nest time. The main camera went out just after the last image above.

This is the view from the Twitch camera. There is no sound and I cannot find any rewind mechanism. As you can see, we cannot tell if Daisy is in the nest or not.

The link to the Twitch cam is here:

https://www.twitch.tv/seaeaglecam?fbclid=IwAR1M7vk5XUVqWDD_3_F3RUo3EIlolHrtna5412R18vN1WBgy4KPZUxLN6j4

I will catch up with Daisy as soon as the main camera comes back on line. Thank you for so much for joining me as we begin Day 17 for our favourite duck!

Thank you to the Sea Eagles@ Birdlife Australia Discovery Centre Sydney Olympic Park for their streaming cam and Twitch Streaming Cam where I took my screen captures.

2 Comments

  1. Linda Kontol says:

    Thank you Mary Ann for the update on Daisy! Our best wishes and prayers are continuing for our little Daisy duck and her 8 eggs. ❤️🙏. Please keep us informed when the cam is up and any new updates. Thanks for the photos. The down is beautiful and I bet it is comfy for Daisy too!
    Have a great Saturday afternoon
    Linda

    1. You are so welcome. I am so hopeful for her. I wish the sea eagles would leave! and that the camera would stop cutting out. It is concerning when you can’t see what is going on. I hope you have a lovely rest of the day, Linda.

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