9 May 2024
Good Morning Everyone,
Ah, WordPress has finally written to tell me that I have used up all the storage they will allow me to have. This means that videos and documents are being removed from older posts beginning in 2017. I will not have to disturb the posts from 2023-24. Just wanted to let you know what was happening if you went back through old posts.
‘The Girls’ have been super today. Hugo Yugo has managed not to get into too much trouble. Mostly they have been overly busy watching the squirrels coming and going along with Mr and Mrs Crow.
Baby Hope will be a year old on 2 July. Gosh, the time has passed. This time last year I was trying to befriend Calico.
Hugo Yugo is determined to try every morsel of ‘human food’ that she can, and now, she has decided that the cheesy dogs that Mr and Mrs Crow get should also be included in her dish. No way! So, she is the sweetest when she is sleeping and not finding trouble to get into. Her tail is bigger than she is.
Calico is ‘cranky’. She is looking at Missey! Arch rivals these two are.
Missey is staring down Calico from the other side of the wicker. It is always a stand off.
As I write this, the four of them are lined up watching the ‘Boyfriend’ eat Mr and Mrs Crow’s food! It is 2100. Still light. Oh, I love this time of year.
Rocking news has come from Geemeff that three gunshots were heard on the Loch of the Lowes streaming cam on Wednesday. The Scottish Wildlife Trust that owns the land has been notified. Will they catch the culprits before they kill them all? This is beyond worrisome.
The Redding Eagles are: Sol and Luna! Lovely.
Lots of Peregrine Falcons this year – four at San Jose and four with Annie and Alden and four with Larry. Those are the ones we know about in California on streaming cams.
Annie and Archie’s kids are seriously cute.
Archie is the cutest.
But he definitely cannot brood the chicks anymore! Just look – the scrape is full.
Big Red and her two Red-tail Hawks. Always good.
In Montana, Iris and New Guy are not letting anything happen to the egg in the nest on a rainy day in Missoula. I love how these birds can count. New Guy is totally with the programme, but there was no way he was going to hunt and feed Louis’s DNA. Ospreys are so funny about that – kicking out the eggs – and then we have those wonderful falcons who help raise the chicks of another (Orange and Cal Falcons for two nests).
My heart skips two beats when the young fledglings return as 2 and 3 year olds. Another one today at Kielder Forest! It’s Elsin!!!!!!!!!
Did you miss this magical flyover Louis and Dorcha’s nest (in off season)? Here is your chance to see this magnificent nest from a different point of view. With so few osprey nests in real trees in North America, this is wonderful to witness.
Here is dear Dorcha on that nest right now incubating.
The camera feed is so grainy at Collins Marsh. There are eggs, but it is not clear if there are two or three.
Bradley is often spotted on the barge at Port Lincoln eating his precious puffers, but we haven’t seen Giliath lately. Fran Solly found him! So nice to see you! Now let’s get Ervie, Bradley, Mum, and Dad up on that tree top with you for a family photo.
The first egg of the second clutch for Audrey and Tom was laid on Wednesday.
‘H’ stayed up because she knew that Dory (Dory and Skiff o the Audubon Boathouse) was ready to lay her first egg. Dory did. We are not sure if the mark on the egg is nesting material or if it cracked.
Tributes are beginning to appear as the finality and the horror of someone deliberately going to a quiet spot and shooting a beloved bird set in.
Poor NCO wants her and Laddie’s remaining egg, but the male at the loch doesn’t think so.
“Geemeff writes: “Resident female NC0 returns after the pale male had destroyed two of the eggs and pushed the third out of the nest bowl (https://youtu.be/YrHpV_j4PLs) earlier on the 7th. She moved it back into the nest bowl again, and overnight she guarded her egg and brooded it at times. In the morning, 8th May, she must have sensed the pale male was near as she started fish calling but those calls turned into alarm calls and she flew off. Moments later the pale male appeared and immediately set about throwing out the egg again. The sooner that egg gets crushed or thrown overboard the better, then NC0 can concentrate on finding a new mate – looks like pale male is putting himself forward as a candidate. He could seal the deal by bringing a fish, but will he?” Geemeff writes: “Resident female NC0 returns after the pale male had destroyed two of the eggs and pushed the third out of the nest bowl (https://youtu.be/YrHpV_j4PLs) earlier on the 7th. She moved it back into the nest bowl again, and overnight she guarded her egg and brooded it at times. In the morning, 8th May, she must have sensed the pale male was near as she started fish calling but those calls turned into alarm calls and she flew off. Moments later the pale male appeared and immediately set about throwing out the egg again. The sooner that egg gets crushed or thrown overboard the better, then NC0 can concentrate on finding a new mate – looks like pale male is putting himself forward as a candidate. He could seal the deal by bringing a fish, but will he?”
Later news from Geemeff:
Blue NCO is forced to move on now.
At Loch Arkaig, Louis sure enjoys some incubation time. Dorcha isn’t so sure.
Are you a fan of White YW and Blue 35 at Foulshaw Moss? If so, their eggs are due to hatch the 22nd of May. This is one of my favourite osprey nests although I am not a fan of the streaming cam. The nest area at Foulshaw Moss is one of the rarest and most threatened habitats in all of the United Kingdom and Europe. It is a raised bog. What is a bog? why is it so rare? and why do Ospreys and other wetland birds love this area in Cumbria so much?
Raised bogs are rare in lowland Britain because 94% of them have been drained so that trees could be planted. By planting the trees, which require water to grow, these former wetlands are anything but wet! The Foulshaw Moss raised bog is unique because of its peat. A Google search tells me that peat is “a brown deposit resembling soil, formed by the partial decomposition of vegetable matter in the wet acidic conditions of bogs and fens, and often cut out and dried for use as fuel and in gardening.” Peat was cut at the Cumbria site but the area still has a ‘dome’ of peat that is higher than the surrounding area. In 1998, the Cumbria Wildlife Trust purchased the property. Their goal was to reverse the damage caused by drainage and afforestation. It is now designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is highly protected.
This couple fledged one of my all time favourite third hatches, Tiny Little Bob, in 2021. When the chick was ringed, we finally find out that this determined third hatch is a male but maybe a female. The ringing data says male. S/he became a dominant bird and because they could not really tell at the ringing because of ‘her’ will to live, I am going with female. Here s/he is at various times in June. They will wear Darvic Ring Blue 463. I hope someday to hear this one survived.
Blue 35 was very crafty in making sure that Tiny Little got fed. She would sometimes remove fish from the nest and then return to feed her baby when the big ones were in food coma.
We have the names of the White Rock eaglets.
Thank you so much for being with me today. The gunshots and the killing of Laddie should alert each and every one of us to the dangers that our dear birds face alongside the loss of habitat and finding good quality food. I find this very disturbing.
‘The Girls’ and I have a new book to read and it is a stunner. Calico already has given it the thumbs up. You could buy it for the illustrations alone, but Calico is only interested in the story and the words and the hope that jumps off the pages. It is the twenty year history of the rewinding of Knepp Farm and it is more than magical. Isabella Tree should inspire all of us to continue to make our gardens count for wildlife – from the smallest insects to the largest mammals. Calico voted today that we plant a shade tree in honour of Tree’s efforts. In years to come, we hope that it along with the new Spruce tree that will have cones for the squirrels will provide shelter for the birds.
I hope they don’t mind! So you can see the quality of the inside. It is a great book to hold and read – Calico says everyone should read to their cats!
The message in Tree’s book is about hope and how we, as individuals, can help nature recover. The message from Jackie and Shadow is that nothing in life is too big to overcome. They do it with love.
Two reports from ‘H’ coming in this morning:
5/9: Fortis Exshaw osprey nest: Louise laid egg #2 at 03:04. And, her new mate has been named ‘Harvie’.
5/9: South Cape May Meadows osprey nest of Hera and Zeus: Hera laid egg #3 at 08:18.
‘L’ reports that we have a third egg at Charlo Montana with Charlie and his new mate, Lola.
‘A’ has been checking on on the Syracuse Red-tail Hawks: “
I just adore this pair. This morning, Oren arrived with a large sprig of greenery – it looked like oak leaves. He considered their placement quite carefully and eventually decided on using them as a quilt, gently placing the large sprig of leaves over the sleeping pile of hawklets. TOO adorable. Meanwhile, Ruth decides to feed the bird that has been thoughtfully left on the side of the nest for an early breakfast to the hawklets. One is late to the table, and largely misses out, getting only a few mouthfuls, because at the point Ruth decided it was the middle one’s turn (and it managed to wake itself up), things were getting a bit messy and feathery and in the end, Ruth just downed the entire thing herself. Impressive.
These are two exquisite RTHs. Both are gorgeously marked, and appear very healthy. Ruth, like all RTH mums it seems, loves to allopreen her hawklets, and if her own underfluffies are anything to go by, this is a very good habit for these chicks to learn to get into. Those feathers could become quite a problem if left unpreened for too long, I would say. On the other hand, they do give Ruth impressive coverage. Yesterday, when it was raining for a lot of the day, she managed to keep her rapidly growing trio dry and warm in those underfluffies of hers. It really does look like the inside of a quilt. “
‘A’ also reports that the GH owlet at Wolf Bay has branched!
Thank you for being with us this morning! Take care. Lots of exciting things happening in Bird World. Check in to your favourite nest today and if the sky is blue and the sun is out – listen for the birds where you are!
Thank you to the following for their notes, posts, videos, books, images, and streaming cams that helped me to write my post this morning: ‘A, AE, Geemeff, H, L, PB, SP’, FORE, SK Hideaways, Cal Falcons, Cornell RTH, Pam Breci, Montana Ospreys, Kielder Ospreys, The Woodland Trust, The Scottish Wildlife Trust, Collins Marsh, Fran Solly, Chesapeake Conservancy, Audubon Boathouse, Mammy Bee Walk With Me, Syracuse RTH, SCMM, Fortis Exshaw, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Trudi Kron, Isabella Tree and Amazon, and Geemeff.
*Disclaimer: Every effort is made to thank those that supply information for my post. If you see an error or omission, please let me know so it can be corrected.*
