28 November 2023
Hello Everyone,
It was a crisp -15 this morning and has warmed to a balmy -10 C. The sky is ‘baby blue’, and the European Starlings have filled the bare branches of the lilacs. A new seed – especially for Jays – has massively attracted the Starlings.
The girls are napping after lunch. They have a pattern. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Then 2130 comes, and it is ‘party’ time.



I am going to put this right up front. Many of you are living in areas where it is getting cold. The mice are coming in. Lots will decide to poison them. Please don’t. There are many reasons, and here is one recent study that might help you convince others not to use poison. I had a darling, sweet three-year-old cat that I had raised on a bottle die from eating a mouse that had consumed poison in one of my neighbour’s houses or sheds. It is a tragic way for any animal to die.
SW Florida’s M15 and his new mate F23 have their second egg right on schedule. Now the two can begin hard incubation and we might be expecting a New Year’s baby!
The Pritchett’s will post the official time.

SK Hideaways caught the joyous occasion on video.
Checking the nest at Pittsburgh-Hays, Mum and the new male.

V3 delivered a food gift to Gabby. Well done you! But, if you were watching, V3 finally ate the squirrel.


Too funny not to include!

Eagle at Redding bringing in sticks….

Meanwhile in Louisiana, eggs are being rolled at the KNF-E3 nest of Alex and Andria.

Nine more days til hatch at Superbeaks. Gosh don’t you wish that cam was fixed just a little different for that side view? I can’t imagine only watching the tops of their heads.

It was a warm day for Connie and Clive at Captiva.

It was a bright day in Iowa with the snow still clinging to the ground and the nest at Decorah North.


It is chucking down rain in Port Lincoln, South Australia.


The rain appears to have stopped or slowed down at Port Lincoln.

Getting stronger on those legs, and look at how much those tail feathers have grown. 959 people watching. Fish fairies can be lucrative in the sense that any funds generated go directly back into the project which is fantastic – new platforms, satellite trackers, and fish!

At Orange, chat mentioned that a juvenile was seen flying at 08:32:51 to the MW (I haven’t got a clue what that refers to).
Diamond watching from the scrape.

Cilla made a video with music of a juvenile chasing Diamond at the tower. Oh, how grand.
Rohan Geddes got some shots of our White-bellied Sea Eagle juvie yesterday. Nice flying.

The two osplets at Osprey House really go after the fish when Dad arrives. It is a wonder he has any talons left.


Raising condors to save the species.




Looking at this lovely Condor baby! A little bit bigger than Hope but doing the same thing – following Mamma and copying her.

Ospreys in Spain in the winter. The Biosphere at Urdaibai.

Golden Eagle believed to have come to harm — another beaten grouse hunting estate. It is time this stopped. Can a bill – the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill – be passed in Scotland and not be watered down so that the culprits continue to get by with this senseless killing? Or will the bill get passed, and then the penalties for continuing to kill the birds be so small that it is laughable, and the gamekeepers will continue to stomp on chicks and shoot these beautiful adult raptors? Despicable. While leaf blowers get my friend ‘R’ really worked up, the stomping of chicks in a ground nest and the unnecessary shooting of raptors or the mass killing of ducks and geese at ponds makes my blood boil.
Just look at that beautiful eagle.

That missing Golden Eagle was discovered to be from a very important estate in Scotland.
Sharon Dunne brings us news from the Royal Albatross Colony.


Looking for some new nature books? Mark Avery just published Stephen Moss’s list for 2023. Have a look. You might find something interesting. Many of the books that I love have been recommended by Avery. This is my first time to see Moss’s list.
These are the 47 books and their reviews of Avery during 2023. The Meaning of Geese continues to be one of my all-time favourite reads of this year, alongside The Comfort of Crows.
Pink-footed geese are part of the flocks that Nick Acheson so desperately wants to see in Norfolk. And just look at this:

How many of you have that ‘bucket list’? Or do you have a Copy of 1000 places to visit before you die? I have only two events on my bucket list – to see the ospreys fly over Cuba near Manzanillo in the mountains during migration and to travel to Norfolk and see the geese before the climate changes so much. They stop spending the winter in the UK. Perhaps next year for both!
Thank you so very much for being with me today. Take care. Look forward to having you with me again soon.
I wish to thank the following for their notes, articles, photographs, videos, and streaming cams that helped me to write my blog today: ‘H’, Tufts Now, Carol Martucci Smith, SK Hideaways, PIX Cams, NEFL-AEF, FORE, KNF-E3, Superbeaks, Window to Wildlife, Raptor Resource Project, PLO, Charles Sturt Falcon Cam, Cilla Kinross, Osprey House, USFWS, Tim Huntington, Alan Petrie, Geemeff, Sharon Dunne, Rohan Geddes, Carol Shores Rifkin, Mark Avery, and Jake Fiennes.