Rita is standing up! Zoe screams for fish, Anna laid an egg…and other news in Bird World

1 December 2022

I can see the lights from the Toronto airport. It was snowing and blowing in Winnipeg and now raining here. Strange to see everything ‘brown’ instead of ‘white’. It is quite ‘strange’ being in an airport! One word of advice: if you can travel with a small carry on, do so. It is a nightmare at the larger airports with the new self-baggage check in. Huge line ups and the same for security. But, I feel privileged to be able to have a short holiday in a wonderfully warm and beautiful place with birds and see my son and daughter in law. It has been far too long!

Speaking of ‘white’, before I go any further, have you ever seen a white eagle? Well, the folks in Oklahoma, where I grew up, are certainly checking their eye sight!

I want to thank everyone that sent me notes so I had them when I landed. First up was ‘H’ and ‘S’ with the good news that Rita has had her surgery and she is standing up!!!!!!!! Now seriously. Standing up. What a strong eagle she is! I am sure we can all shed a few little tears or break out into a huge smile. By, gosh, we need some good news in Bird World. She is still in guarded condition but the surgery itself went well.

The Orthopaedic surgeon said the surgery could not have gone any better. Tears. This is fantastic news at a time when we sure need it!

Tonya Irwin has been keeping a log and it seems that Louisiana is still ahead of Florida in terms of Bald Eagle eggs laid. Today, Anna added to that list with the first of the season’s eggs at the E-1 nest in the Kisatchie national Forest near Alexandria. Congratulations!

At the time of writing this blog, this is the latest news on Samson from the AEF.

There has been no sighting of Alden either but, there is other good news. Annie and Grinnell’s daughter, Sequoia, has a mate at the San Jose City Hall and guess what? They have a streaming cam. Is it possible that we will get to see Annie and Grinnell’s ‘grandeyases’ hatch and fledge? Wouldn’t that just be amazing? When everything seems so dark, there is always light trying to get through.

There is a lot of news coming in but, before I go any further, there has been a question from a very worried watcher of the SWFlorida nest of Harriet and M15. ‘R’ would like to know why Harriet is not incubating her egg? That is such a great question. What Harriet is doing is called delayed incubation. She will lay her second egg in 3 days from the first. If she started ‘hard’ incubation immediately when the first egg was laid, the first hatch would have an enormous advantage over the second hatch. By waiting to start hard incubation until the second egg is laid, the eaglets will hatch much closer together in time – sometimes within an hour or two of one another -and while they will bop one another, it is not usually deadly. They hatch and are closer in size.

In addition, Harriet and M15 do not have to worry about the egg freezing in the Florida sunshine and they have a stocked pond for prey and it appears that there has not been a time of food scarcity at this nest (please correct me if I am wrong).

There are advantages to starting incubation immediately. David Hancock of Hancock Wildlife in British Columbia, Canada has consistently given two reasons why immediate incubation might be practiced. They are: 1) to protect eggs from predators such as Crows, Ravens, Raccoons, etc.; and 2) the eagles want to ensure that at least there is a chance of one surviving during a time of food scarcity. The idea Hancock says is that it is much better for the eagles to have one chick survive than no eaglets at all.

Do not worry. Harriet and M15 know precisely what they are doing. As I said, their eaglets will cause us great grief during the ‘rock ’em, sock ’em’ days but, in the end, the pair normally develop into best buddies. In fact, most of us will grieve for their going off to find their own way in the world probably to never see one another again.

That amazing fledgling Osprey from the Tweed Valley, Glen, is just getting more and more news coverage. If you are trying to figure out where you have heard his name, well, let me remind you that Glen also landed on two different cargo ships and took rides, he flew through a large area of hydro lines and landed on a the roof of a fruit factory in Portugal where he was believed to be dead. But, nope. Not Glen. He flew out over the Atlantic Ocean for 36 hours solid flapping his wings until he found a small island to land on. He is now in Morocco. Glen deserves all the news coverage he can get. What an adventurous life this young man has had and he isn’t even near a year old!

If you do not know about Glen’s adventures on the two fishing trawlers, please start your reading here. You will be delighted you did!

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-62967646

So grateful for all the coverage of this amazing young Osprey. Sacha Dench is going to have to add more segments to her programme, Flight of the Osprey, for the BBC. This chap might even deserve his own show! I honestly don’t think I have gotten so excited about the migration of a male Osprey since Ervie didn’t migrate!

At the Port Lincoln Osprey nest, Dad brought Zoe a nice little fish at 10:00:13. ‘A’ says that she can always tell when Dad is coming because Mum ‘does her talon dance’. I watched for that – she does, back and forth on the talons, wings flapping, moving out of the way so Dad can land. Well, Zoe is perfecting or has already perfected that talon dance along with her fish prey screaming. My goodness she is loud. I bet Fran Solly can hear her across the lagoon without having the sound on the streaming cam. Zoe start about a minute and a half before Dad lands with the fish.

We will continue to grieve for little one, Rubus. At the same time, we must also celebrate the falcon fledgling that Xavier and Diamond are working so hard to train so it can have a full and productive life like Sequoia.

Indigo certainly as a ‘voice’! He flew in and chased Xavier out of the scrape a few minutes before returning with his breakfast. Here is a short video clip of Indigo coming into the scrape with prey at 0700.

This is the latest update from Cilla re Rubus. So very sad but, reassuring that the little fella did not suffer.

Thank you so very much for being with me. Send all your good wishes out to Rita as she recovers, to Ron who may or may not know what is going on, to Gabby who waits for Samson and to Annie who might not yet know Alden is missing. So much is happening — and here I thought there might be a lull until eaglets start to hatch at the end of the month. Bird World is always full of surprises. Take care everyone. See you soon!

Thank you to the following for their messages, posts, videos, and streaming cams where I took my screen captures and video clip: ‘S’, ‘H’, ‘G’, Port Lincoln Osprey, Charles Sturt Falcon Cam and Cilla Kinross, Conservation without Borders, BBC, Raptors without Borders, Sharon Pollock and SWFlorida Bald Eagles and D Pritchett, Tonya Irwin and Kistachie National Forest Eagle Cam Fans, Gretchen-AEF, Salsa Bird and Bald Eagles Live Nest Cams and Birds, Holly Parsons and Orange Australia Falcons, and Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.