White YW delivered the tea time fish – a nice large one – to the Foulshaw Moss Osprey nest in Cumbria. Blue 462 nabbed it first and then guess who pinches it off big sibling! Tiny Little!
Big Sibling 464 on the left and 462 on the right – all waiting for Tiny Little to make a wrong move with that nice fish. Go away both of you!!!!!
Then 462 got it back!
The first round both 462 and 463 struggled with the mouth and eye area. Wonder who is going to get that fish when it is nicely opened.
Ah, White YW cannot stand to hear one of his fledglings call for food. He promptly went out and got another one. Blue 464 got that one. It was such a nice fish that 464 was eating on it an hour later. Tiny Little flew off the nest probably chasing Dad. No one should be worried thought. Tiny Little had a nice crop prior to snagging that fish off 462. None of these chicks are hungry!
Blue 464 is enjoying his nice big fish – alone! No one is around sniffing for some pieces.
Good Night Foulshaw Moss Ospreys!
In Wisconsin, Malin is busy self-feeding on a piece of a fish that Dad delivered. What captivates me today are the wing feathers. They are looking so good. There is a condensation mark but if you look to the right that one dangling feather from earlier in the month is now ‘crossing over’ the way that it should. The other wing feather scallops are lined up perfectly. Oh, Malin, you are growing up!
The nests are so big and every streaming cam distorts the images (or so it seems). It is difficult to try and determine how big Malin actually is.
There is no time code on the Collins Marsh camera. I believe that there was another delivery by Collins to Malin – this time another piece of a fish. That is really helpful for Malin to work on its self-feeding and not get caught up with the bony mouths and eyes. Eventually Malin will need to do that. Right now one of the wonderful things is Malin’s anticipation of the food drop and his excitement and mantling on its arrival.
In the imager below, Malin sees Collins flying into the nest. Look at his eyes. He has also dropped his wings in anticipation of mantling that fish.
Malin pivots. Wings stretched down and out for mantling with beak forward to grab the fish from Collins’s talons.
Get out of the way Collins! Malin has secured the food.
Ah. Over. I notice also that Collins’s crop is nicely full. He has eaten the head and perhaps part of the fish before the delivery.
These two food drops for Malin to self-feed come after the aggressive manner that Malin approached the fish yesterday with Marsha. We are moving on to the next phase: no more feedings by mom? Let’s watch and see.
Is this the tail of a little Bullhead?
It is a beautiful day on the Canadian Prairies. For the first time in ever so long we can see blue sky, not sky filled with smoke. It is 21 degrees C. That is 69.8 F. Just lovely for a trip to the one of our local parks.
It was a delight to walk up to the duck pond and discover that our Parks Department has put up signs to educate people on why they should not feed the ducks bread. Last year the local birding group had a big campaign to get this practice stopped. Today, the signs are up. They are large and prominently placed at strategic entrances and exits. No one was feeding the ducks, they were just enjoying them! Well done Parks Department!!!!!!
Thanks to the recent rains many of the geese were out on the fields where people play soccer or cricket eating green grass.
A male juvenile Mallard enjoying the water fountain at the rocks.
There was real discussion on the identification of the duck above and the one below. The discussion ended when the little duck below showed us her feeding behaviour. She is a dabbler so she is a female Mallard – not a female Blue Winged-teal.
Mallards come to Manitoba to breed. They arrive in the spring and leave in the fall. Here the little female is mottled brown with a whitish tail, and orange feet.
When feeding, she tips up and dabbles in the shallow waters of the duck pond for pondweeds and aquatic invertebrates. They also feed on larval amphibians and fish eggs.
The female Wood Duck and her ducklings. You can tell the Wood Duck by its white tear-eyed eye patch. Her breast is a mottled brown and white.
Wood Ducks are migratory birds in Manitoba. They arrive in the spring, normally April, and will head south in October. They are cavity nesters. They will lay their eggs in a tree cavity or specially built enclosed wood boxes. The ducklings are ready to bounce from the nest when they are 24 hours old. Precocial animals and birds hatch/born with all their feathers, skin, etc. and are able to see, hear, and move about.
The little Wood Duck and her ducklings mingled with the Canada Geese. Only once did I see a goose get aggressive towards one of the little ones.
Malin’s initial feather issues have caused me to spend more time looking at the back and wings of birds than I ever would have thought possible. Each individual feather is simply beautiful – taken together they are like a wonderful musical symphony – each performing their own task to help this Canada goose swim, walk, and fly.
The tail and wing feathers of a non-breeding male Mallard.
As we were leaving, a Juvenile Bald Eagle was soaring above us.
Then the Northern Goshawk beats its large wings. The Northern Goshawk lives in Manitoba all year round except for the southern part where they can be seen only in the summer or in the winter if food supplies in the North fall.
It was a good day! The skies are turning grey and the wind is picking up a little and maybe, just maybe, we will have some more rain. Wishing and hoping.
Thank you for joining me today. Take care everyone. See you soon.
Thanks to the following for their streaming cams where I grab my screen shots: the Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest and the Collins Marsh Osprey Nest.