Tag Archives: Polish eagles

Late Friday and early Saturday in Bird World

22-23 April 2022

Friday was drawing to a close. Big Red had been restless all of Thursday and it was a wonderful relief when L1 hatched and was deemed ‘perfect’ after a worry over some blood coming from the egg earlier. Tonight (Friday late) Big Red is trying as best she can to get some sleep while L2 is hatching. The cracking is such that we now have gone beyond a mere pip.

If all four of the eggs hatch, Big Red s going to need to grab those naps as much as she can.

Big Red is not giving away any hints Saturday morning. But you can see the more than pip in the back right egg and a pip in the back left egg. L1 is doing fine. Being an Only Child – even for a short time – has its advantages.

Arthur brought in another starling in the morning. There are now 2 Starlings (one partially eaten), 1 grey bird, and a partially eaten snake in the nest.

Dawn is just breaking in the Tucholskie Forest in Poland. You can hear the songbirds singing as the sun rises through the pine trees. This just reminds me of a fairy tale forest. White-tail Eagles are so beautiful with their lighter heads and darker bodies – all seemingly touched with a bit of silver.

Mum left to take a wee break. Both of the eaglets are still alive and appear to be doing well.

Mum returns to brood the chicks in the soft morning light.

Do you know the Anacapa Peregrine Falcon Nest? This couple have been together since 2013 raising chicks on the cliff face on the remote Anacapa Island in California. They are known as Mr and Mrs A.

Anacapa is part of the Channel Islands where we have a couple of familiar Bald Eagle Nests, Two Harbours (Chase & Cholyn) and West End (Akecheta and Thunder).

Two chicks have hatched this year. Just look like white fluffy little teddy bears with big pink beaks and pink toes and feet. So cute. They are 3 days old. It is hoped that the third egg is non-viable. It is typical for not all of the falcon eggs to hatch. These chicks are big and strong and that chick would be behind.

Here is a feeding from yesterday.

This is a feeding from today.

This is the link to the streaming cam for all you falcon lovers!

https://explore.org/livecams/falcons/peregrine-falcon-anacapa

I want to check on the status of the Black Stork nest that was the home of Grafs and Grafiene last year. The very late arrival of the female last year caused issues at the nest. The male returned earlier in April this year. Many on the Forum are wondering if it was Grafs or another male. The male worked away bring twigs and moss to prepare such a nice nest. Now it is the 22nd of April and there is no female yet. The male sings and looks around. Fingers crossed for a quick arrival of a female to this gorgeous nest in Sigulda County. Come on Grafiene!!!!!

Here is the link to the nest:

Karl II is working very hard on the nest he shares with Kaia. He is very handsome!

Karl II and Kaia have had a male intruder land on the nest. Kaia helped magnificently in defending the nest. Unlike other species, the males and females will defend the nest against opposite genders. There are apparently a lot of single male floaters due to a lack of female storks. They are causing problems with established nests. We are waiting for an egg at this nest!

Here are the couple defending their nest.

Mum and Dad returned to Glacier Gardens yesterday! Looking forward to another great year up in Alaska. Kindness was the sweetest little eaglet. It was a great name and touched the heart of so many. It is so nice to see Mum and Dad.

There are now three eggs at the Llyn Clywedog nest of Dyland and Seren Blue 5F. Dylan is a great fisher but he also loves to incubate and he wasn’t wanting to give up that spot Saturday afternoon!

Mrs G and Aran have two eggs now.

Cheers are happening in Poole Harbour because CJ7 and Blue022 have their first egg. There will be more. The first hatch will be historic – the first Osprey in Poole Harbour in over 200 years!!!!!!!!! Incredible. The community worked hard to relocate Ospreys to the area and it looks like they will have success this year.

This is such wonderful news for this couple that began bonding last breeding season.

The very first osprey of the 2022 season has hatched in the Diaccia Botrona Nature Reserve in Maremma in Tuscany, Italy yesterday.

The situation at the Florida-Gainesville Osprey nest is not improving. I captured a couple of images of Little Bit taking a few bites of a fish on the nest before Middle went after him. You have to look carefully. Its tiny head is in the very centre of the nest under the tail of that fish.

The minute the older sibling notices Little Bit move it attacks despite it having a full crop.

The two large siblings prevented Little Bit from getting any food even though they were clearly full.

Feeding and any movement by Little Bit triggers their aggressive behaviour. The ability of both Big and Middle to dominate the food coming into the nest is directly seen in the growth progression of the three nestlings. I often smile when I see people in chat rooms saying not to call the dominant birds bullies but in his 1979 article “Sibling Aggression among Nestling Ospreys in Florida Bay” in The Auk (vol. 96, no 2, 415-17) Alan Poole says just that in discussing the difference in size of the nestlings “however, 3 days after the first sibling bullying was seen, nestling A was 165 heavier than B…” (416). The older two are simply that – bullies. What I did find interesting about Poole’s study was that he did not find the same level of aggression in the Ospreys in the Chesapeake Bay area. Some of you will have observed, as I have, sibling competition and aggression at several Florida Osprey nests such as Achieva Credit Union (2021), Captiva (2022), Pink Pearl (2022), and Gainesville currently. You might well know of others in the last couple of years.

Little Bit mustered the courage to get to the beak but there was no fish left.

In the image below you can see the size difference between Big, Middle, and Little Bit. The older ones will continue to have the advantage unless this chick gets fed – it had a few bites yesterday and some fish later on the 21st. Tiny Tot lasted for 72 hours before getting some fish at Achieva in 2021. Indeed, that chick had – in a month – the equivalent of 12 full days without food. She went on to become dominant. It remains unclear to me if Little Bit will survive the weekend, sadly.

Little or MiniO fledged yesterday morning early (the 22nd) and has not returned to the nest. It is unclear to me whether she is in a tree or is grounded. Middle (or Little) is in the nest with Lena fish calling to Andy.

I never like to close with sad news but I have just heard that two of the eaglets at the Denton Homes nest have died. It is suspected that it is Avian Flu. We will see if the third survives but it is doubtful. The Dad is there and is very confused. The surviving chick is in the nest with the two deceased ones. — It was thought that Avian Flu was mostly staying on the East coast. This is a move into the heartland being triggered by migrating birds? There will be concern for other nests in the region. Please send them your warmest and most positive energy.

We have had rain since the wee hours of the morning on Friday. It has filled several of the low areas of the garden with water. The worry is that they are reporting a drop in temperature that would freeze the ground surface causing the rain not to soak in (the ground is already saturated) and create wide scale flooding. We worry about the animals. All of the squirrels, Hedwig, Mr and Mrs Woodpecker along with a myriad of Juncos, Sparrows, Grackles and Starlings have been trying to eat. It is difficult to convince Hedwig that we have special food for him on a plate that is relatively dry!!!!!!

Thank you for joining me. I hope to have some happy news on Big Red and Arthur’s L2 later this evening. Take care all. See you soon.

Thank you to the following for their streaming cam where I took my screen captures: UFlorida-Gainesville Ospreys, Brywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn, Poole Harbour Ospreys, Captiva Ospreys and Window for Wildlife, Cornell Bird Lab RTH, Biehki Online Bory Tucholskie, Estonian Eagle Club, Diaccia Botrona Nature Reserve, CarnyxWild, Explore.Org, and the Latvian Fund for Nature.

Thursday morning in Bird World

21 April 2022

The snow that was forecast did not materialize in southern Manitoba and Winnipeg. That is wonderful! We needed a break from the last storm to melt the snow and to be outside. The birds needed a break in the weather, too. Sadly, there is another special weather advisory for the southern part of Manitoba starting tomorrow morning through Sunday. Perhaps we will only get the wintery rain. Oh, the poor Wood Ducks. They have just arrived.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The Q & A session on Cal Falcons is at noon in Berkeley! When you go to the YouTube site and set the alarm reminder, it will confirm your local time – hence the confusion. Thanks ‘B’ and ‘S’.

You can tell by Big Red’s demeanour that ‘something’ is happening. She does a little wiggle and then you catch her with this focused look as if she can see the eyas advancing in its pecking. Of course, she can hear it cheeping and, apparently, so can the other three. Some believe that this encourages them to hatch faster so they can join their sibling. That would be grand.

Arthur revealed the progress of the hatch when there was a shift change.

Hatching!

The White-tailed eagle nest of Tula and Borek in the Tuchola Forest had three eggs. The eaglets hatched on 8, 12, and 14th of April. There are only two surviving eaglets today. Siblicide is not as widespread in White-tail Eagle populations as it is in Golden Eagles. That said, when the third eaglet hatched the eldest at this nest began immediately to beak it. There was 6 days difference in their age and size. I believe the two surviving are hatches 1 and 2. I will refer to them as Big Bob and Middle Bob to try and keep things straight.

Today, Middle was clever and crawled up leaning half in and half way out of the nest cup so it could get some food. This is a very determined youngster. The eldest had eaten and so the youngest was not tormented. I hope that these two survive just like the two oldest hatches at the Dale Hollow Nest.

The nest is 25 metres above ground on a 140-year-old pine tree. The White-tailed eagles have been using the nest for four years. At another place in the forest, eagles had been nesting since the late 1990s on a 160-year-old pine near to one of the fish lakes. So for 25 years eagles, at some location in Tuchola Forest, WTE have been breeding. There is a year round protection area around the nests extending 200 metres in any direction.

The nest is located in this large, 46 sq kilometres, nature reserve in northern Poland. The two main types of trees are the Pine and the Oak Bartek. It is the oldest oak tree in Poland believed to be 686 years in age.

“Polek i Bartek w jednym lesie stali” by Polek is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

The park is full of rabbits, deer, and 80 species of birds. There are also nearby rivers for fish. It is anticipated that there should be plenty of food for the adults and both of the chicks.

There are about 1200-1500 pairs of White-tailed Eagles in Poland. Their conservation status is ‘very scarce breeding bird’. Most of the eagles live in the northern areas of Poland.

Here is a link to this White-tailed Eagle nest in Poland:

Both eaglets were being fed well Thursday morning:

Idris and Telyn were watching the train go past the Dyfi Nest in Wales. Two eggs. We will be watching for the third tomorrow.

Little (or Mini) is still on the nest with Lena and has not fledged yet. Middle (Little) took off this morning about 10:05 for a flight and is perched on some greenery near the nest. He is probably going to watch for when Dad delivers a fish. This morning Lena has also had to chase away an intruder, another Osprey.

It looks like the MN-DNR nest is getting a bit of sun this morning. It will help dry out the nest of Harry and Nancy but will they get some of that snow and rain that is coming?

What is enfluffeling?

Jackie and Shadow’s 2022 eaglet, Spirit, sure loves it when the wind blows hard through the nest. She is working those wings today!

For all us worrying aunties and uncles, the cam operator did Zoom out and there are three eaglets on the West End nest. Relief. When the camera is in the normal position, you might only see two.

This is the view of the Glacier Gardens Nest this morning. Oh, it is beautiful. Liberty and Freedom should be returning soon.

It is a bright sunny day for Chase, Cholyn, and the little one at the Two Harbours nest.

The Redding Eagles are asking for you to vote for your favourite name for Liberty and Guardians 2022 hatches. Here is the announcement:

Friends of the Redding Eagles​ NAMING: Step 2: Vote for your favorite pair of names, just ONCE please. Click here to vote- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA…

Jasper and Rocket from Samson and Gabby’s NEFlorida Bald Eagle nest have both fledged. They have also returned to the nest. Yahoo. Today they were perched on a branch of the nest tree looking out. I wonder if they might do some tandem flying?

Mum flew in with a hunk of fish at 09:22 at the UFlorida Osprey nest. Look where where that one osplet is positioned for the feed! I believe this to be either Big or Middle. It is not Little Bit.

That chick got a lots of nice big fish bites while the other two were fighting at the back of Mum. It is difficult to tell who is who and the dark shadow is not helping. I first thought it was Little Bit on the rim of the nest but I believe that Little Bit is getting hammered by Big while it is Middle eating. But that is not a 100% certain ID.

The chicks are really, really hungry. Clever of that one to get up there to be fed. It walked away and fell into food coma. Smiling. Ah, is he playing possum? He looked up to see the other two eating. Wonder if he will return for some more fish?

That osplet would certainly like some more fish.

Sadly it looks like Little Bit is lodged between Big and Middle. This is not good especially with less fish coming on the nest and the hot weather dehydrating the little guys.

Little Bit cannot seem to get around the bigger sibling. He will be getting tired and dehydrated.

At 10:00 the Big sibling was laying on top of Little Bit.

I do not believe Little Bit did get any fish. The feeding was over and Mum went to brood the chicks.

I will monitor the UFlorida nest on and off today. What looked good a few days ago has now turned. Let us all hope that another big chunk of fish gets on that nest quickly so Little Bit can have some food.

This is the latest on the hatch for Big Red and Arthur. The image was shot in a change over from Arthur to Big Red. I am really hoping that is blood from a prey item.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Take care everyone. I will be back with what I hope is good news on Little Bit later today along with hatch news from Cornell. See you soon!

Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen captures: Cornell Bird Lab, UFlorida-Gainesville Ospreys, Friends of Big Bear Valley, Explore.org, Tuchoskie Forest Eagle Cam, NEFlorida and the AEF, Redding Eagles, MN-DNR, Captiva Ospreys and Window for Wildlife, Cal Falcons, Glacier Gardens, and Dyfi Osprey Project.