Late Tuesday in Bird World

19 April 2022

Right now it is hard to believe that snow will be arriving again in about 4 or 5 hours. All of the garden animals are out and about running around on the hydro lines and poles and checking to see if there are any corn kernels hidden in the wood in the little sheds. Dyson knows it is there! He will find it for sure.

Sharpie seems to have some competition in the garden now with a Cooper’s Hawk (note the curved tail). This hawk is much larger than Sharpie. I wonder if it is a female. Certainly didn’t need to worry about birds at feeders!!!!!!!! They took off but a few went down under the deck and Cooper knows they are there.

Besides the garden chaos with Cooper, there has been a mini-kerfuffel going on in my City today. To feed the songbirds or not? to put out feeders or not? in times of Avian Flu. I decided to ask the Cornell Bird Lab and also sent a question to Dr Thijs Kuken at the University of Erasmus in Rotterdam who is a virologist and studies Avian Flu. I have not heard from him. But the Cornell Bird Lab did send the following information:

“Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

We are paying attention to the situation. Avian influenza viruses occur naturally among wild aquatic birds worldwide and can infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species. Wild aquatic birds can be infected with avian influenza viruses in their intestines and respiratory tract, but usually do not get sick.

There are no suggestions to take bird feeders down unless you have backyard poultry or work with poultry or other domestic birds. Of course, this may change as birds begin their migrations north.

Below are some resources that should help.

Fact Sheet from the Cornell Vet School: https://cwhl.vet.cornell.edu/system/files/public/cwhl-fact-sheets-ai.pdf

I hope this helps.

Thank you.”

Sarah Wagner, PhD
Public Information Specialist
Cornell Lab of Ornithology

It is recommended that you clean your feeders with a very mild mixture of dish soap and either white vinegar or bleach (very, very mild). You should allow everything to fully dry before using them. There are also recommendations that you clean your feeders every 48 hours. But do note, if you have feeders near poultry – as in a back yard poultry area), those feeders should be removed!

Checking on the UK Ospreys, Mrs G and Aran have their first egg. It arrived at 19:37! Aran saw the egg and went to get Mrs G some more bedding. Sweet.

Telyn and Idris welcomed their second egg at the Dyfi Osprey nest at 18:01.

Sweet. A nice fish for Telyn. Oh, Idris. You are a darling.

A small piece of fish with the tail arrived at the Dale Hollow Eagle nest late in the day. Big and Little Middle were decidedly hungry! It was nice to see the adult feed them both.

I know that the parents slow down the delivery of fish as the eaglets get older providing them with plenty one day and nothing another so they learn about living on their own. However, it sure was nice to see a piece of fish show up for these two!

Martin and Rosa’s eaglet at the Dulles-Greenway Bald Eagle nest is doing great. They have had some bad weather and it is still really windy there.

Akecheta has been busy protecting his three eagles at the West End nest on the Channel Islands. It looks like he was concerned about some gulls that were overhead this afternoon.

I did not see it but ‘B’ sent me a video clip of an intruder getting right in the scrape box at Cal Falcons. I am glad I did not see that event live. Thank you, ‘B’.

Sadly, the successful breeding and relocation programmes often cause a lot of floaters looking for nests that can be quite disruptive to established pairs with eggs or chicks. Or, sadly, cause fatalities.

Little Bit has a nice crop. You can see it in the ‘cuddle puddle’ on the nest. That fuzzy light grey marble looking thing is its crop! The nest has done well today. Mum has tried to keep those osplets cool.

Jasper at the NE Florida Bald Eagle nest took its first flight and has since made several others. Rocket is ‘thinking’ about flying. Jasper, however, seemed to have everything happen the day he flew for the first time. He roosted during a storm on the nest tree and, as the AEF realized, he was also hit by an owl! Needless to say he was tired and starving when he got back in the nest. Here is the footage of the owl attack.

This has been a very short newsletter. I hope that everyone is doing well. Take care and I will see you again soon – with more eggs being laid tomorrow in the UK! Thank you for joining me.

Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen captures: DHEC, Brywd Gwyllt Glaslyn, Explore.org, UFlorida-Gainesville Ospreys, Dulles-Greenway Eagles, Pix Cams, and Dyfi Osprey Project.