Tag Archives: Boo

Catching up with Miss Daisy

You will remember from my earlier posting today that our favourite little duck, Daisy, got home to her nest at 19:03. A couple of hours later and not having any evening contact with the mated pair of White Bellied Sea Eagles, Daisy was relaxing. And then BooBook Owl came and scared the wits out of her. She did not leave her nest but she got in defensive posture ready to protect her nest. At first Boo flew low right over Daisy on the nest. It is 20:51:40.

In the image below, Boo is nothing more than a blur as she flies directly over the centre of the big sea eagle nest. She is so close that she almost touches Daisy when she does the fly through.

The blur of BooBook Owl.

Daisy immediately gets into defensive posture. Boo circles the nest flying around the branches, going round and round. It keeps Daisy attentive and moving with the small owl. She always wants to know where the owl is. At 21:06:35 Boo lands on one of the small branches up near the top right corner of the image below. You can see the legs on the branch but not clearly. Look carefully. The left leg appears lighter than the right.

Defensive posture.
Boo moves closer down the branch to have a good look at Daisy.

BooBook Owl finally decides to sit closer to Daisy. Now you can see the eyes, the beak and the left leg along with the little owl’s body.

Boo is a nuisance to our Daisy, right now. She is also curious about this little duck in the sea eagle nest. Boo is used to bumping into the eagles in the night often injuring Lady’s eye. Boo is especially aggressive when she has her own nest of babies, November-December, and would love it if she could harass the sea eagles enough to get them to leave the forest. Fat chance on that happening!

BooBook Owl courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Boobook is the smallest owl in Australia. Owls are nocturnal so that is why Boo only pesters Daisy after dark. Boo will hunt all kinds of insects and very small mammals such as mice, small bats, and moths. Boo is about 27-36 cm tall or 10-14.5 inches, and weighs only 140-360 grams or 5 ounces to 12.6 ounces. The wings span ranges from 188-261 mm, or 7-10 inches. In comparison, remember that the White-Bellied sea eagle is the largest bird in Australia with a wing span of 2-2.3 metres, standing 80-90 cm tall and weighing 2.5 to 4 kg. Pacific Black Ducks are approximately 54-61 cm or 21 to 24 inches in length and they weigh 1025-1114 grams or 2.25 to 2.4 pounds. Daisy is bigger than Boo but the most important thing for her right now are her precious eggs and their protection. Boo could make a terrible mess and while the little owl does eat insects and bats along with mice, it might also be interested in Daisy’s eggs.

The sea eagles did not show up this morning. They were at Goat Island and it was raining and windy. Daisy’s morning was, as posted earlier, rather uneventful til she starting listening and raising her neck listening to the vocalizations from the other birds in the forest.

At 9:29 the ravens arrive. You cannot see them but Daisy heard them coming and knows they are about on the nest tree. The little duck immediately goes into a defensive posture. Notice, in the image below, how she has fanned out her tail and she has her feathers puffed up. This makes her look larger.

The Unkindness stay for approximately twenty minutes. Daisy moved as they did, just like she did when Boo was on the nest tree. She always kept her head tucked, her tail fanned, and her other feathers puffed.

As the day wore on, there were periodic showers on the nest. Daisy did some housekeeping, moving leaves closer to the nest in case she needed them for cover.

By noon, Daisy was relaxed and ready to take a wee bit of a rest. She tucks her bill in under her wing for warmth. Instead of being 40 degrees C like it was two days ago, today it is only in the low 20s with showers. What a change in temperature!

Daisy begins sweeping the leaves toward the nest and tucking the now dry down inside. She is preparing to go foraging. It is 13:58:14. This is quite a bit earlier than the last several days.

Daisy has camouflaged her nest well. In with the fluffy down are some leaves and twigs.

Leaves and twigs help hide the nest.

It is now 16:04 and Daisy has not returned to the nest. She often returns around 19:00 or 20:00 right before dusk but when she has left this early she has come back around 16:45. One day Dad had arrived and she had to abort her landing on the nest to avoid him seeing her. I wonder when she will come home today?

Thank you so much for joining Daisy and her adventures in the big sea eagles nest!

Thank you to Sea Eagle cam, Birdlife Australia, and the Discovery Centre for providing the cameras where I did my screen captures.

Oh, what a ‘BOO’ tiful night or…not. BooBook Owl comes to check on Daisy’s nest and then Daisy is ‘RAVEN’

The feature image shows an Australian BooBook Owl sitting on the rim of the sea eagle nest where Daisy has her eggs. She flew off the nest as soon as Boo arrived.

Boobook Owls are the smallest owls in Australia measuring from 10.5 to 14 cm (27 to 36 inches) in length. Those of us watching the White-Bellied Sea Eagle (WBSE) nest in the old Ironbark Tree in the Sydney Olympic Park are very familiar with ‘Boo’. The BooBook eats insects and small vertebrates. They breed in late winter and early summer and have their nests in tree hollows. Little Boo is infamous for striking the adult WBSE when they perch on their nest at night and for flying at and hitting the juveniles in the nest. Once or twice this past nesting season, Boo inflicted injury on the eye of WBSE mom, Lady. Boo is a nuisance but not thought a tremendous threat to Daisy. The problem is when she is frightened and flies off of the nest leaving her eggs exposed. For all purposes, it appears that Daisy is like a single mom having to do the incubating and the defence. She is one tough little duck.

Daisy returns to her nest around 4:43 am, some three hours after Boo lands on the nest. She waddled slowly over to the nest, looking this way and that, making sure that there were no more intruders. She settled and began incubation as she could not feel any threats still around.

Daisy returning to her nest after BooBook Owl leaves.

Daisy remained on the nest incubating her eggs until WBSE Dad comes to check on the nest at 5:39:25. This has to be one confused adult male sea eagle! There are eggs in HIS nest and he is trained not to step on eggs in case they might be his!

Daisy meanwhile made her quick escape just 25 seconds prior to the sea eagle landing.

WBSE arrives at dawn to his nest in the Ironbark Tree.
WBSE Dad lands at dawn to see if that strange thing in the middle of his nest is still there. Everyone holds their breath. What will he do?
WBSE Dad staring at the duck nest on the morning of January 15.
WBSE Dad arriving back at his nest and checking out Daisy’s nest. Yes, Dad, it is still there! You have not been imagining anything.
WBSE Dad poking his beak into the duck’s nest. Hopefully he did not break any eggs. He did this twice.
WBSE Dad grabbing a piece of duck down off Daisy’s nest.

Daisy could have been watching from a short distance because she returned to the nest as soon as Dad flew away at 6:30:29. This is one lucky duck!

After all the excitement of Boo and Dad, Daisy settles in to hopefully a quiet morning on the nest.

Two visits. It is a wonder that Daisy settled back on her eggs at all. Everything is quiet until 8:44. A raven lands on a branch of the nest and then jumps down to the rim! An egg eating raven!

An Australian Raven arrives on the nest rim.

The Australian Raven grows to 46–53 centimetres long or 18-21 inches. They appear an iridescent purplish blue-green and black in their plumage. They are part of the passerine family that includes crows. And they love eggs! Indeed, they are a great robber of nests. They are opportunistic feeders living on both plant and animals as well as food waste.

Daisy’s first reaction to the raven was to press her body flat in the nest. She appeared very frightened at first. And then she stood her ground. She leaned forward off of the eggs slightly and clacked at the raven. And, guess what? It flew away!

In the image below you can see Daisy stretching her neck and laying flat on the nest, just off the eggs, clacking. The tail of the raven can be see just slightly above the bottom right hand corner as the bird departs!

Daisy clacking at the raven to protect her eggs

Daisy has settled back on her eggs in hopes of a much more quiet day. Stay tuned! It is not even noon in Australia and no telling what is going to happen next in The Chronicles of Daisy the Duck.

Daisy often turns clockwise in her nest enlarging it and also you will see her go in with her head. She is aerating the nest.
Daisy continues to add down from her breast working to make it softer and softer.

Thanks to BirdLife Australia and the WBSE Sea Eagle cam for the scaps.