Will the Sea Eaglets fledge today? and other brief news in Bird World

1 October 2022

It is 15:44 on the Canadian Prairies and it is Saturday. The sky remains cloudy with a temperature of 12 degrees C. In Australia, our raptor families are waking up and I wonder what will be in store for them today.

At the Sydney Sea Eagles nest in the Olympic Forest near the Birdlife Australia Discovery Centre, SE29 and 30 were particularly active around 0522. If official branching has not been called, it could certainly be done this morning. The eaglets are very interested in the world beyond the nest and are hopping and flapping and standing on the parent branch. An adult flew in but had no food in its talon. Oh, I would love those two eaglets to follow an adult out of the forest to the River Roost on the Parramatta River. There, safely away from the Pied Currawongs, Lady and Dad could continue to feed them while teaching them to hunt their own prey and letting the eaglets get their flying perfected.

At any rate, it feels like fledgling is imminent.

At the 367 Collins Street scrape, the eyases woke up to a feed. Mum looked around, rushed down the ledge, and flew back with a small item of prey. Was it the leftover pigeon? or a Starling? It was hard to tell.

‘A’ has assured me – much to my relief – that male2 is providing the food for Mum and the trio at the Melbourne scrape. There was much e-chuffing and Mum flew out to retrieve the prey from the hidey-hole. Meanwhile, Male2 comes down the ledge, stands over the chicks as if to protect them, and then moves out of the way watching as Mum feeds the three white furry balls. All is well in Melbourne. Relief. Thank you ‘A’.

Xavier and Diamond’s first hatch had Starling for breakfast this morning. It is a running joke at this scrape that Diamond hates Starling. She will refuse to eat it if Xavier brings her a fresh bird but, she is happy to feed it to the eyases!

Meanwhile, the osplets had a nice fish delivery – everyone seems to have eaten well although Mum moved and it is hard to see how much Middle and Little are getting.

Everyone still had a nice crop over an hour later.

So far this morning in Australia all is well on each of the four nests. There are three eyases and a Mum being fed in Melbourne by the new male who we all hope will turn out to be as lovely as Alden and Xavier. The Sea Eagles are more than ready to fledge and they are beautiful. I wonder if they will take their first flight together? Port Lincoln was relatively calm this morning with the feeding and Little Bob is beginning to turn into a reptile, too. Diamond and Xavier could not be happier with their first hatch.

Thank you for joining me on this catch up again with our Australian raptors. If you did not hear, Harriet and M15 have been seen and photographed at their old nest tree and Samson and Gabby are home, too. We continue to hope that all of the others impacted so badly by the storm at Captiva will be seen – but, it is unclear if there is anyone to check on them the area was simply destroyed I am told. Please take care. See you soon!

Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen captures and to ‘A’ for letting me know about the prey delivery at Melbourne: 367 Collins Street by Mirvac, Sea Eagles@Birdlife Australia Discovery Centre Sydney Olympic Park, Port Lincoln Ospreys, and Charles Sturt Falcon Cam.