Snow is taking on the appearance of less fluff and more feather. With only approximately 15 days or so left before attempting to fledge we’re making the most of our time with Snow. Cilla’s coming on well with some substantial research statistics from this breeding season (e.g. food patterns, parental behaviour – male/female etc).
Here’s a 6 mins clip of Snow just messing about near the ledge …
We’re 99% sure we’ve now solved the recording server’s issues with the loss of archives. Attaching an external HDD about 8 times the size of the previous disk (now more than 2TB, as was estimated when we purchased the software through Lan1 – spot on, Basil!) seems to have given us the answer and is indeed archiving and maintaining records; at this rate we may be back to around 3-4 weeks worth of archives at any one time. Still working on quality, and audio output…
Thanks for the update – will be exciting to watch Snow get ready to fledge!! I am enjoying this site and I know you and the falcons have lots of fans around the world!
Thanks for the great nest cam. It’s so fun to watch Snow flap and play with feathers. This is one colorful nest–lots of brightly colored feathers. Are you able to determine or keep track of the species the falcons are hunting? Thanks again
Hi all,
sorry for the delay in replies – those colourful feathers appear to be a couple of different species, probably galahs, definitely starlings, and possibly the odd other smaller parrot (red-rumped parrot, eastern rosella etc). Food supply is very good in the local region this year, having had 2 previous ideal breeding summers for most native and exotic species. Cilla’s indeed deep in studying video archives from both cameras and is developing an impressive set of research records at the moment. More details soon.
Scott
Is Swift ok? In one of the last videos I and my Facebook raptor groups friends thought she seemed very listless like she was ill.
Ginny I was thinking the same thing it is not like her to lay around and just a few minutes ago around 5pm she was doing some real weird head motions like she might have something stuck in her throat and is trying to get it out I’m sure hoping I’m just worrying to much
With approximately 15 days to go before “Snow” fledges, what progress has been made with regard to banding him/her, Cilla & Scott? I recall you mentioning last year that you were working on this. Is there an issue with regard to banding peregrine falcons in Australia? It would be wonderful to be able to track Swift & Beau’s offspring.
Hi Kathy,
Great to hear from you again! We’ll not be banding again this year. The biggest issue was going to be in convincing a licenced raptor bander to make their way to country Orange, from possibly Victoria, 10 hours drive south, for a single chick! Cilla and I are looking at licencing ourselves for all future banding work. Cilla is indeed already licenced for other bird groups. It’s the next logical operational task for the Project, and a positive next step forward.
Scott
Swift is acting strangely. She is lying down a lot, don’t think I have seen before in any of the (many) other nests I have observed.
Hi Ingrid,
We’re monitoring Swift but at the moment there’s no panic; she’s eating well & sharing space really comfortably with Snow. There’s a possibility that the eyrie may actually be too comfortable for her!
Thanks for keeping in touch,
Scott