Tag Archives: intruder

Tuesday in Bird World

22 March 2022

It is impossible to convey how joyful the image below makes me. River has been diligently shading Middle and Big since they finished an entire American Coot around noon.

As you can see both eaglets have big crops. Middle’s is enormous. That kid really likes American Coot!!!!!!

River stayed with the eaglets on the nest for most of the day. There were high level alerts between her and Obey and they both went into defensive mode. The two chicks ate and ate and still have a bit of a crop after some crop dropping. They will be fine til tomorrow but let us hope that something big comes in to the nest so things stay relatively peaceful. Middle is growing and that is a good thing and he is getting better at strategizing.

Middle is, however, scaring the wits out of me! I really hope that he doesn’t tumble over the edge when he tries to get upright. Oh, gosh, golly. What next?

At the MN DNR nest of Harry and Nancy, it was a cold torrential downpour this morning and the weather is still miserable in Minnesota. Nancy is doing everything to protect those precious eggs.

Poor Kincaid is one soaked eaglet and its nest is wet to its core. You can see all of the turtles that have been brought up for lunch by Louis! Goodness. This was another nest that often had American Coot along with the fish and the turtles.

It isn’t raining yet in Pittsburgh. Thank goodness. DH17 just hatched this morning. Two little Booble heads for Mum and Dad! DH16 wants to eat and the wee babe just wants to sleep. Cute.

The winds have really calmed down at the Captiva Osprey nest. Lena must be so happy. She was almost blown over last night! Just take a look at these two gorgeous osplets.

In the image Lena is moving around the edge of the platform to provide shade for the osplets. That is Little – yes, Little (or Mini) under Lena’s tail. Can you believe it?

And there is beautiful Middle Bob up front by Mum. The plumage that is coming in on these chicks is so gorgeous.

Both watching Mum fly!

The fourth fish delivery to the Captiva nest came around 14:00. Look at how well the chicks plumage camouflages them on the nest.

Everything looks good at Eagle Country. The two chicks of Abby and Blazer – well, it doesn’t seem right to call them chicks anymore. Gosh, they are beautiful and big! Won’t be long til fledging.

Well, what is up with Annie and Grinnell? Some are worried because the young females continue to come to the ledge of The Campanile wanting to court Grinnell. He has tried to get them to leave without a lot of success. Meanwhile, he tries to reassure Annie that he is the one. The pair have been caught on camera courting in the scrape. Annie, who normally lays her first egg on 10 March, is a bit late. She has been spending more time hanging around in or near the scrape. Thanks to ‘B’ we have a good time line of Annie’s activities this morning. ‘B’ notes the following (I missed it because of Dale Hollow): “Grinnell arrives on the wall to their balcony at 7:55, drops down to the scrape at 7:57.  Annie arrives on the wall almost immediately as G drops down, then Annie joins Grinnell in the scrape at 8:00:16, sixteen seconds late for their 8:00:00 pair bonding appointment.  G leaves within about a minute, but Annie remains, lying in the scrape until 9:30.  Annie moves to her roost on the lamp at that time and remained there until 10:23, when she returned to the scrape, where she remains now at 10:35.  Doing a little scraping, picking at rocks, lying.” Thank you, B. 

Annie has a really nice crop. I sure hope that meal was provided by Grinnell! Annie is gorgeous. They are even grandparents.

Here Annie is in the scrape.

Annie returns to the scrape. I sure hope we see some eggs in this scrape, soon

Martin and Rosa are taking really good care of their one and only chick for 2022. It is growing quickly – getting all the food that could be meant for 1 or 2 more. What a darling.

The first hatch at the Redding Bald Eagle nest of Liberty and Guardian is certainly cute and fuzzy. It hatched on 20 March at 21:20 so it is 1.5 days old. The remaining egg is pipping!

Oh, those first little bites are so tiny.

Well, this is really how to feed three eaglets so that you have three fledges! Thunder and Akecheta are a great team. This keeps the volume and any rivalry down when they do their tandem feedings which is often.

In Manitoba we have the Peregrine Recovery Project and two of the breeding males have arrived back in our province a little early. One was trying to work on the scrape box on the Raddison Hotel and the gravel was still frozen. Meanwhile the Canada Geese continue to fly in while the Snowy Owls are departing for the north.

It is a beautiful day so far on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. What a gorgeous place to have a nest. There is the Queen of the Red tail Hawks, Big Red.

I want you to take in this beautiful Welsh landscape. Pastoral. Now look at the Osprey nest. The good people of Glaslyn have built up the edges for Aran and Mrs G on their return. Everything is fixed and wired. All the Ospreys have to do is bring in the nesting material!

I sure wish someone would have done this for Richmond and Rosie. Seriously there are twigs all over the Glaslyn Valley for Aran and Mrs G but no so plentiful on a shipping yard with concrete! Rosie was making progress yesterday and then the wind flipped her off the nest along with all her hard work.

The Dahlgren Osprey nest was a new build platform. Jack and Harriet have both been working and the locals are leaving more stuffed toys for Jack to take to the nest. Today’s delivery was number 2 toy. Jack and Richmond both have something in common. They love to bring bright and unusual things to their nest. Cute. Jack does get out of hand, helped along by the good citizens of the community. I don’t think I have ever seen an eagle bring a toy to the nest. Have you?

This is the most recent report from the Kakapo Recovery – it is a struggle with these amazing non-flying parrots. Those who work with them are so dedictated.

Thank you so much for all your notes and suggestions for viewing. I hope to have a listing to share with everyone in a couple of days. It has been a good day except for the weather and intruders. There are pips, hatches, eaglets and osplets eating, Ospreys arriving, intruders, tornadoes, torrential rain, high wind gusts, and all manner of anything that can happen at a nest.

Oh, River brought in a small rat or squirrel. It looks like Big will eat most of it. I am kinda’ glad about that if it is a rat.

Middle has now moved up and has not fallen off. Relief.

At 16:49:11 the camera goes to the lake. There were some horrible sounds at 17:07:23. What was that? I hope it is just my over active imagination.

There must be intruders about. Fingers crossed everyone!

Middle doesn’t need a rat to eat. He had half an American Coot this morning and some leftovers from it -small pieces later. He still had a nice crop. That said, I am certain he would get right up there for ‘rat’ if Big left any for him.

Thank you so much for joining me and thank you for all of your notes, your comments, your questions, and your recommendations. They are always appreciated. Please take care everyone. See you soon!

Thank you to the following for their streaming cam and/or FB pages where I took my screen captures: The Kakapo Recovery, Captiva Ospreys and Window on Wildlife, Dale Hollow Lake Eagles, Cornell Bird Lab and RTH, Pix Cams, Dahlgren Ospreys, Brywd Gwyllt Glaslyn, MN DNR, KNF, Dulles Greenway Eagles, Redding Eagles, Eagle Country, West End Bald Eagles and the Institute for Wildlife, and Cal Falcons.

Intruder at Achieva Osprey Nest – again!

Of course, I cannot stop checking on Tiny Tot at the Achieva Osprey Nest in St Petersburg, Florida. Too soon he will be gone – poof. It appeared that it had been a relatively calm day for Tiny but I was wrong! That adult intruder was back on the nest this morning.

Tiny Tot had a fish delivery. The parent who delivered the meal was on the nest with Tiny at 9:50:01. I believe it was Jack but I am not 100% sure. Remember that Tiny has a fish he is protecting – you can’t see it but it is there tucked between his legs and below his belly.

Both become aware of another Osprey flying over. You can see the shadows over the nest sometimes. They both begin to look different directions with Tiny Tot flapping its wings and alarming.

The parent raises their wings and looks like they are going to fly off after the intruder.

The parent stops and begins to fold their wings down as the intruder approaches the nest coming in from the right. You can see them. That black line with the white is that osprey approaching (middle of the image on the right).

The intruder is at the nest!

He buzzes over Tiny Tot without stopping missing its landing.

And you can just see the tail feathers as that nest invader leaves.

But that isn’t the end of it. Tiny is not able to eat his fish yet because that intruder bird overshot its target and comes back! At 9:51:18, the intruder returns and lands on the nest at 9:51:29 right behind Tiny Tot who is still guarding his fish lunch. He lost one fish to the intruder bird yesterday and he is not going to make that mistake again.

Tiny is doing a fantastic job mantling its fish. He is not going to engage the intruder adult today. He wants his lunch and he knows that if he stays like this he will keep it – he learned that from the fight with the intruder yesterday. Smart kid this Tiny Tot. Oddly, the parent just looks off in the distance as if they are completely oblivious to what is happening behind them. Odd that.

And then without any agitation, the intruder takes off at 9:52:20. It is gone.

Tiny is still mantling that fish determined that no one is going to take it away for awhile after that bird is gone.

And then relief sets in and Tiny Tot gets to enjoy his fish. Whew! These events happen so quickly and can be so dangerous. Poor Tiny.

And before I close there is a couple of news items in Bird World. The little albino osprey born at the nest in Urdaibai, Spain ate for the first time. It only took a couple of bites as expected and went back to sleep between its siblings. How cute is that? Just a little cuddle puddle.

And I have been spelling his name wrong – it is Wattsworth at the Cowlitz PUD nest in Washington State. He brought Electra and the two chicks four fish deliveries today. My goodness, he really is changing his ways. One of them was what we call a ‘Mud Puppy’ here in Canada – a small catfish but, it was nonetheless a fish!

Here is Wattsworth on the left. He has just given Electra the little catfish. And look, one of the chicks already has a big crop. What a wonderful day for this osprey family. I hope you keep it up, Wattsworth. It sure would be nice to have a couple of fledges off this nest this year and not tragedy! The world could use some joyful news – so, Wattsworth – keep bringing in the fish!

Thank you for dropping in on this quick check on Tiny Tot. He sure is learning a lot on that natal nest. He should almost be prepared for anything. Take care everyone.

Thank you to the Achieva Credit Union, the Cowlitz PUD, and Urdaibai Biosphere Park for their streaming cams. That is where I get my screen shots.

Quite a fright

Late yesterday afternoon Daisy arrived back at the nest right before 17:00. In a split second, she saw the two WBSE on the camera tree and was able, quickly, to abort her landing. They scared Daisy. She stayed away only returning at 19:43 as the sun was beginning to set on the old Ironbark forest.

And if that wasn’t enough of a fright, in the wee hours of the night she was literally scared off by sounds coming from the nest. Daisy was so frightened she quickly flew off after listening for a few minutes. And that scared off the Ringtail Possum that was climbing up the nest peeking in at Daisy sleeping in the sea eagle nest. It seems they both scared one another.

Common Ringtail Possums are small. They are about the size of a medium domestic cat. They are grey with some white behind the eyes with a white tip on their tail. They use this tail almost like a fourth leg wrapping it around branches to help them climb. They are forest dwellers and are very familiar with the sea eagles that raise young on this nest. Many people think they have their nest at the very bottom of the sea eagle nest. Like BooBook Owl and the more threatening Common Bushtail Possum, they hunt at night. They are vegetarians feeding on plants, fruit, and flora. The little Ringtail possum is the only species of possum in Australia where the male is actually involved in caring for the young possums. They are, again, not as much a danger to Daisy as the Common Ringtail Possum.

Common Ringtail Possum. Notice the thick tail that they use to help them climb. Photo courtesty of Wikimedia Commons.

The possum that Daisy should be very fearful of is the Bushtail.

Brushtail Possum at Grampians National Park, Australia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Brushtail possums are the most widespread marsupial in Australia. (They are also in New Zealand). They are brown and have really bushy tails with a underneath furless patch that helps them to climb trees and hang on to the branches. They hunt at night and eat leaves, flowers, fruits, insects, small animals, and eggs. They are not related to the Opossum of the Americas and they are not the benign fruit eater portrayed by many books. They pose a real problem to Daisy as they are, as noted earlier, keen egg eaters. These possums are known to have eaten parrots, keas, robins, as well as larger kiwis. Researchers believe the decline of the North Island Kokako (endemic to New Zealand) to almost extinction was caused by the Brushtail Possum. The Kokako is a large grey-blue song bird. It has a black mask and long legs. New Zealanders are working hard to restore the populations of these lovely forest birds.

North Island Kokako perched on a Branch. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

It is now past dawn in Sydney, Australia. No sign of the White-Bellied Sea Eagles. Daisy is setting serenely on her nest. You will notice that she has been bringing in some of the down that was scattered. The nest is quite fluffy now!

Daisy, after dawn, January 22

There is absolutely no telling what comings and goings will happen today. It is Day 10 of brooding!

Daisy’s beautiful layered plumage on her wings.

Dawn casts a beautiful rose-gold over all the forest.

Dawn

And just about the time Daisy settled into a quiet early morning, she heard something land on the camera tree. It is 7:18:48. Too late to get off the nest or cover the eggs, she decided the right thing to do was to freeze flat.

Daisy lays ‘frozen’ hoping that the large bird on the camera tree does not see her.

Whatever it was, it was, its shadow indicated that it was a large bird but not as large as a sea eagle. Spotters said it was white so it is likely not then the Raven who continues to come, hoping to find Daisy gone and eggs for dinner. The bird left in about ten minutes but Daisy stayed frozen like she is in the photo above. Gradually, she began to relax.

Daisy relaxing slowly.

The first threat of the morning has come and gone after the excitement of the possum who came during the early night.

Stay tuned. An updated post will come in about six hours. Stay safe. Thanks for dropping in to check on Daisy.

Thank you to Sea Eagle Cam, BirdLife and the Discovery Center for the cameras from which I took my scaps.