Oh, goodness. Bazza spent the night on the nest in the same spot as Ervie did. Bazza has been there all day waiting for a fish delivery. No one thinks this is unusual – it is Bazza! But, when Ervie did the same thing, we worried. It was out of character for him.
It is windy and the water is choppy today, too. Falky and Ervie are no where in sight. It is Mum and Bazza on the barge. Maybe Ervie and Falky are out trying their luck fishing with Dad.
Ervie will eat that fish tail that he left last night when he wakes up.
Bazza is certainly a handsome Osprey.
Sometimes Bazza hunkers down duckling style on the nest when it is windy or he is tired of standing up. You can just see Mum on the ropes at the right near the bottom of the image.
No fish deliveries so far despite Bazza’s fish calling.
In the video clip below, Xavier calls Diamond up to their scrape box on the water tower at Charles Sturt University at Orange today. Their bonding ritual with its bowing and eh-chupping is fascinating. It took place a few minutes ago. What a beautiful couple they are!
Right now OGK, the male Royal Cam Albatross parent, is incubating his egg for a straight 13 days, 14 tomorrow. His mate YRK has not returned. There are two possibilities: she has had to travel so far to find enough food to eat to sustain her on incubation duties or she has been caught and killed by the long lines on the fishing trawlers. As we are aware, the oceans are warming. At the same time there are countries who have huge trawlers scooping up the fish 24/7. Each are causing havoc for our sea birds and it will get worse. Let us all hope that YRK is alright. The NZ DOC rangers have already removed the fertile egg from under OGK and put it in the incubator. OGK is incubating a dummy egg in case he has to leave to save his life before YRK returns, if she does. The rangers are also prepared to give OGK supplementary feedings. In terms of their birds, NZ is enlightened. They recognize what climate change and humans have done to destroy the environment for the animals and the birds and they are doing something positive for them. I hope that YRK shows up while I am writing this. It would be the best thing!
I have been trying to find live bird cams in Japan for one of my readers, ‘A’. I found this one that has three different cameras for three different wildlife or bird boxes. The boxes are located at the base of Mount Lizuna which is northwest of Tokyo. One is for Mandarin Ducks, another is for Ural Owls, and another is a wild bird feeding station. Please enjoy and if you know of other streaming cams in Japan, please let me know so I can spread the news!
It is the beginning of a new year for all of us and what could be a better time than now to reflect on the beauty, the inspiration, and the sheer joy that our feathered friends brought to us over the past year. They taught us so much. How many times would we be able to see a Peregrine falcon couple bonding? or a Bald Eagle tenderly feeding its chick? or a third hatch be clever and courageous? We are so blessed. I am starting to make a short list of resolutions for this year and they include writing to everyone I know to try and end the harm that longline fishing is doing. I also want to work towards a ban on the manufacture of rodenticide, which causes secondary poisoning to birds, and lead in hunting and fishing equipment. All of those require persistent e-mail mails. Protective covers for power poles need to be put in place and there needs to be awareness of the dangers of monofilament line and a clean up of the shores of lakes and rivers. That is a start! I am certain that you can think of many more ways to make the lives of our birds better. Maybe you have made some resolutions, too. I would love to hear about them!
Thank you so much for joining me. It is always a pleasure to have you with me. Take care everyone!
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen captures and video clips: Port Lincoln Osprey Project, the Charles Sturt University Falcon Cam and Cilla Kinross, and Cornell Bird Lab and the NZ DOC.
Thank you Mary Ann! You have some great ideas about how we can try to help the lives of these birds. I hope and pray some of these ideas will work and we as lovers of birds can help them! There are so many challenges they are facing out there.🙏❤️
Have a great day today!
Linda
There are so many things to do. The trick seems to be to find the right person to help get things moving. I noticed in the interview with the young woman, Dr Lauren McGoug (listen if you haven’t – great information about birds) she mentions that the threat to Golden Eagles in Wyoming where there are so many are the hydro poles. It is such an easy fix but there are so many poles. If legislation could just get passed that gives only a short window to fix the problem so many could be saved. And the long line fishing is easy ——put the bait on the lines at night. I mean how simple is that Linda? But, honestly, I think the fishing on the seas needs to stop and allow the numbers of fish, if it is possible with the warming oceans, to increase and then have strict quotas. We try. Each person does their best! It creates a huge army of helpers!!!!!
I am so happy from the bottom of my heart for the ministry.
According to the description, the mandarin duck lives in the owl’s nest. They seem to be away from us now, so I’m looking forward to the breeding season.
If I could be extravagant, I would love to see LIVE coverage of the osprey nests in Japan, but we don’t have any in Japan.
I am praying for YRK’s safe return. They are a very nice couple.
Thank you so much for your time! I was very impressed.
Have a great day!
You are very welcome. It is my pleasure to find those nests, Akane. It made me very happy. There are Ospreys in the waters of Japan so I do not know why there are no Osprey cameras. Let us keep checking. We might get a surprise! I continue to look for the falcon cameras, too. It is very worrisome about YRK. In Hawaii, there is difficult for some of their albatross to find food, also, at times. We wait and hope and pray.
Dear Akane, I found another streaming cam in Japan. It is not birds but is delightful. It is the Awaji Island Monkey Center. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsxYH2XQQCg
Wow! I know Awaji Island Monkey Park. It’s another kind of fun.
In Japan, there are cams in spaces where humans manage animals, such as zoo giant pandas. “Especially birds of prey” in nature have few cams.
Thank you for looking for a cam. I am very happy.😊
There are so many cameras in Japan. I do not understand why there are none for the raptors. Maybe we will be lucky Akane and find one. I asked all the readers if they knew. Fingers crossed. I will keep looking!
One of my students sent me a photo of all the snow. It is her son’s first snow so she is happy. Please take care if you are outside.
Thanks for more updates, Mary Ann. I too have been really worried about the Royal Albatross mom and was wondering what the latest news was. Feeling my heart sink that she still hasn’t returned.
Also I truly appreciate your resolutions and hope that others also take up the cause. Younger generations need to be educated on what they can do to spread the word. I think there’s a great lack of awareness and caring in this world and that needs to change more than anything. Perhaps with all these wonderful opportunities to observe birds and all wildlife — through more and more streaming cameras — there’ll be some sort of change. The chats are a great beginning in educating folks to the need for that change. Again, the raising of consciousness needs to come first and I pray that’s what is happening.
Thank you, thank you, Mary Ann!
She’s back and so happy. Yes, we need lots of education and ‘those in charge’ need to accept the human responsibility for climate change so we can move forward and make this work for future generations! We all do what we can, Betty!