Monday in Bird World

4 December 2023

Good Morning Everyone,

Ah, I slept in! A first in such a long time. It was a bit of a worrisome day yesterday watching Port Lincoln and trying to figure out their experiment’s goals. Then there was the problem with Grayish and the lingering question of whether we will add a fourth to the lovely and happy household. How would Grayish change that dynamic or good groove? Since ‘H’ alerted me yesterday, eyes have been on Anna at the Kistachie National Forest nest E1. She appears to be preparing for egg laying. That would be grand.

Well, Sunday turned out to be an interesting day. As you know, we expect to add a little boy temporarily named Grayish to ‘the girls’. The foster mother returned home today and called to make arrangements. Well, it turns out that Greyish’s information was lacking in two critical details. First, Grayish is not a little boy. She is most definitely a girl. Secondly, Grayish has only eaten raw food. I have had cats since I could crawl – actually before and my experience has been that the females are very sweet and allow you to cuddle with them when they want. It is the males that are the most friendly. Lewis loved to cuddle with Missey, but also with me. So I am not certain that I want another female or that having another female would be good for the mix that is current. They are now getting along splendidly. Calico and Hope have claimed the old cat tree in the conservatory and Missey has claimed the new one. The ownership of other items such as baskets and chairs doesn’t seem to be a problem. It switches constantly. Then there is the issue of the raw food which I have discovered the kitten adoption agency does not agree to – so what is going on? There are those that adhere to the notion that it is better because felines in the wild ate animals and the food was raw. It is, however, know to lack certain minerals and vitamins so I would have to research that. — But more so, is the fact that I don’t want to be feeding four cats different food; raw food is so expensive in my city that feeding it to four cats is prohibitive. It would be an issue for Grayish to switch and I don’t wish to compromise her and what she is used to. — So there we are. I continue to wonder if these are not signs that three perfectly happy female cats is enough.

Calico anticipating story time!

Hope is getting ready to jump on Mamma!

Missey looking down deciding if she is going to leap on Hope and start a race.

The most fun for me today in Bird World was watching Shadow and Jackie move a big stick around. These two work together, sometimes disagree, and are always amazing and give us a smile!

The couple became fixated on this one particular branch that was irking them.

There are continued concerns over V3 at the NEFlorida Eagle Nest. Last year ‘A’ wondered about his ability to father and this year that concern is growing amongst watchers as Gabby is clearly entering a fertile phase. Will she not have eaglets again this year? Do we need that threesome with A1? Why not? We wait!

We have our Royal Cam couple at Taiaroa Head! Oh, they are the parents of Taika and Karere, both Royal Cam chicks in past years. This is fantastic and it is so good to see both of them safely back to breed.

There is news coming about Flaco, the Eurasian Owl, that escaped from the Central Park Zoo. He resided in Central Park and has now moved into Manhattan. Why might this be the case? Have a read!

There have been no sightings of Diamond and Xavier doing any flight training or prey deliveries. I hope when I wake up and check I can delete that sentence.

Is this one of the fledglings from the Olympic Park nest of Lady and Dad? It doesn’t say, but Rohan Geddes has taken images of one of the eaglets and posted it previously.

Waiting at Port Lincoln.

As I write, it is now more than 50 hours since either of the Osplets or Mum and Dad at Port Lincoln have had any fish – either caught by the adults or provided by the Fish Fairies.

Dad brought in a nice fish. It was headless so he had a meal. Looks like the time was around 15:32. Kids are famished. So is Mum. Way to go, Dad. Mum was good to make sure that both were fed.

Then Mum caught a fish around 16:14 and the Fairy arrived at 16:41. Before Dad’s delivery, I had written a tirade. 50 plus hours is a long time to let osplets wait to eat…there is a point where this becomes very unhealthy as all of you watching osplets die on nests know. So what was the goal of this experiment precisely? To get two osplets to fledge? or to see if adult ospreys would stop fishing if fish was delivered? and then start if it wasn’t? or was it both? Things began to feel very uneasy.

Why are the days without fish not being recorded? That would alter the calculations and be misleading. Days not reported on the Fish Chart that had zero fish:  8/20, 8/13, 9/12, 10/13, and 12/3.

Let us hope that there is more news today in Bird World. Thank you for being with me today. Please take care of yourself. We hope to have you with us again soon.

Thank you to the following for their notes, videos, articles, charts, and string cams that helped me to write my blog this morning: ‘H, J’, FOBBV, Royal Cam Albatross, Bruce Yolton and Urban Hawks, Rohan Geddes, and the Port Lincoln Ospreys.