There were thunderstorms and lots of rain for Daisy, the Pacific Black Duck sitting on six eggs yesterday. She managed to cover them as best she could before leaving last evening at 18:04:04.
The camera was off when I went to check on Daisy’s arrival on Day 7. That said there is more rain and thunderstorms forecast for today. Daisy was nicely puffed trying to keep her eggs warm and dry.
At 07:35:47, Daisy laid egg number 7.
Daisy continues to roll all those big eggs under her.
Daisy is really beautiful as a bit of the morning light comes through the branches of the Ironbark Tree.
I am terribly grateful for the winds yesterday and last evening as they blew down some more leaves for Daisy to use to cover her eggs.
Daisy continues to roll her eggs and try to loosen some down from her breast. I will continue to monitor her through the day to see if any predators come to the nest and how long she stays today.
Skipping to a different topic for the moment also -.
Dr Christian Sasse and Georgia have been having a conversation about the loss or decline of 3 Billion Songbirds. “Where are all the song birds we once heard?” It has been very relaxing listening to those bird songs while watching Daisy. These are a few highlights from this on line discussion.
Threats to birds and wildlife:
-pesticides end up ingested by other animals such as birds eating insects
-habitat decline, nesting and over wintering, invasive species including pets and dogs. Keep house pets inside. Don’t have cats outside in the morning when birds sing early. Get a bright collar on the cat to help the birds see them. The Tree Snake in Guam – tiny and looks harmless – but made 12 species of birds on Guam. This is a non-native snake species. Was accidentally on American military aircraft. Rats are very bad for island birds eat the bird eggs and attack birds.
-Window Strike during migration due to lights. Keep lights off at night during migration or blinds shut. ‘Lights Out’ by Audubon Campaign.
-Reflective windows are very bad. They mistake it for open sky.
-Climate change.
-Human population is the biggest threat of wildlife. This is especially true of people who use lots of resources even though the population might be lower. We need to think about how our actions impact the environment.
Raptors and waterfowl are not in decline. Active conservation activities are very effective. Sasse comments that a slow decline is very dangerous in the songbirds because you hardly notice. This was compared to the Passenger Pigeon which vanished before people had any idea it was in trouble. This is precisely why we do counts and band birds, also. To be able to recognize when a decline comes into effect.
In fighting the decline of songbirds, this article shows up in The Guardian today.
Are the songbirds getting shut out of habitat by other birds?
iNaturalist is an app to record seeing any plant or an animal. This is very helpful to scientists to understand the decline and rise. Georgia mentioned a new way to help scientists. It is Record the Earth – hit the record button – another way to submit data. In this case it is a video recording. It also acts you to record your emotions about the sounds you hear.
There was a brief mention that the decline in the Salmon population is declining and has a huge impact on bears and Bald Eagles. Looking forward to having a conversation with Dave Hancock on this. You can subscribe by going to Sasse Photo.
Thank you so much for joining me. I am so glad you are interested in what is happening to our little duck, Daisy. She is extremely alert and we just send her all our love and good wishes. Maybe if we all collectively blow we can get some more leaves to fall down off that tree!
It is to be partly cloudy with another thunderstorm and more rain happening at 16:00 Daisy’s time.
Thank you to Sea Eagles @Birdlife Australia Discovery Center and Sasse Photo for their streaming cams where I took my screen shots.