The menace that is Malta, Collins Street female injured?…Saturday in Bird World

7 October 2023

Good Morning Everyone!

Thank you so much for your comments and letters. I appreciate hearing about your pets and your experiences with feline teeth – thank you for sharing and caring. I am pleased to report that the pain medication has helped Lewis, and he is eating well again. At this very moment, Lewis and Missey are glued to the living room window. A Hairy Woodpecker is going after one of the corner cedar shakes!

Hope and Calico are oblivious to everything going on with Lewis. They are just happy – loving watching the birds, playing and having stories. We are certainly going through novels!

It is interesting to watch Calico get settled for ‘a story’. She now expects this and curls up on my lap. The little one watches carefully from the edge of the chair as she is doing below. It is certainly one way to plough through books that have been sitting waiting to be read! It is wonderful.

Calico is putting on weight. Talk about a gentle soul. You can see that the dining room table in the conservatory is still their ‘safe dark’ spot…with its duvets piled on the floor for warmth and layers and layers to cover the top and the sides. It is getting cooler at night now that we are into October and the girls get the heat turned on once the sun goes down.

We punched the holes in a small pumpkin and filled them with peanut butter. It sits on the log Little Red uses to jump to the table feeder. Let’s see if this pumpkin treat works! Clearly will not win any awards for beauty but we will wait to see if it is something that the squirrels will enjoy.

In Canada, this is Thanksgiving weekend. The celebration is on Monday and coincides with what was traditionally the end of harvest and giving thanks for the land’s bounty. (Quite different than the American Thanksgiving).

I am so grateful to the garden animals that they will get special treats on Monday.

We are going to Australia right away. It is hot and the wind is really blowing. ‘A’ has already pointed out an interesting problem. M15’s mate at SW Florida has been named F23. We have F22, a falcon, at Collins Street. We are both hoping that there will not be another F23 this year anywhere or it will get confusing.

‘A’ has been watching the Sea Eagles and reports, “SE32 won the fish Dad brought in late this morning (6 October) at WBSE. He held onto it, mantled it, protected it from SE31 and self-fed most of it, before allowing SE31 to take the final piece. The head and tail had been removed from what was originally a medium-large fish, so with the fish unzipped, SE32 was able to get in some wonderful practice, and by the end, he was doing really well. He did get the majority of the fish, finishing with a very nice crop. He was obviously hungry, as he was simply fearless in claiming and hanging onto that food. At one point, there was some serious fighting over the fish (lunging with beaks was involved, along with much flapping), but SE32 fought his sister with great determination while hanging on tightly to his fish. He was NOT letting go. I was so proud of him. After watching that self-feeding, and the consequent boost to SE32’s confidence, I am way less concerned now than I was yesterday. Even though the food supply at this nest has not been as good as I would have liked over recent days, at least SE32 is not now missing out on his share of what there is. Both are doing a lot of wingercising and are looking strong and steady on their feet, with excellent balance. SE32 is doing more hopping than his sister, bounding across the nest like a small wallaby. 

There has been little or no sound or sign of crows or currawongs this season, though I don’t remember seeing them much or at all in previous seasons either until fledge day arrived. I remain hopeful that these two, with their strong relationship, will return to the nest after fledging, if only to be together. I do wish Dad and Lady would spend more time over the next week or two imprinting this nest in the eaglets’ minds as a smorgasbord of delicacies to which they will definitely return once they take the plunge. I think back to last year – in particular, the way SE29, after fledging, came back to sleep at the nest with SE30 each night and what may have happened had SE29 not gone into care the day before SE30 fledged. These two have a very similar relationship to the one between SE29 and SE30 last year, so there is a chance their bond will again help them survive after fledging this year.”

Please keep the female at Collins Street, F22 in your warm thoughts. ‘H’ just sent me the latest posting by Victor Hurley that explains why we have seen M22 incubating the eggs so much!

What a delight it is to watch Diamond and Xavier with the two eyases. The closeness in time of the hatch has made all the difference. These two are developing well – each getting their portion of food. You can see a slight difference in size but this is not hampering the second hatch at all. Xavier is working hard to get prey to the scrape and is doing a fantastic job despite some high winds that have been in the area. The temperature remains around 18-20 C.

Diamond got upset. A Currawong flew past the scrape!!!!!!!!!!! She is not going to let that bird get near her precious babies.

If you missed Dr Victor Hurley’s talk on Peregrine Falcons in Victoria Australia, here is that link.

Gabby and V3 continue to make restorations at The Hamlet. V3 has certainly won the heats and minds of everyone for his staunch protection of the territory around the nest. We are all hoping for little eaglets this year!

Anna’s injury is really improved. You might recall she even had problems landing. Well, that wasn’t the case on Friday when the landed on the nest with a nice fish and began chortling. How wonderful! Nice to see this improvement.

Osprey Season is over in North America, the UK, and Europe. Jeff Kear has posted a very informative article by the Scottish Wildlife Trust about their feathers that you might still find useful as we prepare for hatch at Port Lincoln.

Please keep your positive thoughts going for the migrating ospreys. Things in West Africa are changing and the once pristine habitat is being altered – either by climate or by habitat loss due to human expansion.

This is tragic. As you will remember from yesterday’s blog, there are Ospreys who navigate a route from their spring/summer breeding area in the UK to the precise concrete pillar. Our dear Seren 5F is being impacted. So what happens to those birds when the water and fish dry up or are irreparably flooded?

Countries do listen especially if tourists decide not to travel. Let those that allow poaching – Malta and Cyprus – know how you feel by travelling elsewhere – to places that value nature and wildlife.

Malta has long been a place that is renowned for its illegal songbird poaching.

The fact that Malta lies on the flyway that links Europe with Africa and the winter home of these migrating birds is particularly problematic.

Owls. I have a love-hate relationship with them – and get bloody upset when they start knocking M15 off the perch or fly in and take our precious osprey babies. Did you know that there are 234 different species of owls living around the world, from the ice-cold Arctic to the tropics and the deserts? Their keen eyesight and hearing and specialist feathers help them hunt at night – they are the silent killers.

Thank you so much for being with me today! We will be planting trees later today. It is Re-Leaf day and there are three Azur Maples arriving to add some more colour to the garden. Take care all. See you soon!

Thank you to the following for their notes, posts, articles, videos, pictures, and streaming cams that helped me to write my newsletter this morning: ‘A, Geemeff, H’, Sydney Sea Eagle Cam, 367 Collins Street by Mirvac, Charles Sturt Falcon Cam, Liznm, Victor Hurley, NEFL-AEF, Tonya Irwin, Jeff Kear, The Scottish Wildlife Trust, Chris Wood, Geemeff, Conservation Science and Practice, Responsible Travel, Google Maps, Cambridge Core, and Cornell Bird Lab.