Season 2016 is underway

Thanks to all our regular viewers for spotting the great news at approx 7.30am (Aust local time) this morning. Poor adult peregrine female, Diamond, had a rough time but has successfully laid her first egg for the season. She’s about a week early, on average, and caught us on the hop as we’re still trying to get software upgraded and tested. It looks like we missed video for the occasion due to upgrade glitches but after 2-3 hours this afternoon we appear to have resurrected some form of surveillance recording (to be tested).  Apologies for the 2-odd hours of testing and changing the camera streams too! We want the highest streaming resolution for good viewing but too high and the streams begin to hang. We did, however, grab some photos from the nest cam (albeit blurred due to dirty lens):

peregrine falcon mum and first egg 2016
Female Diamond and first egg for 2016 season

Stay tuned over the new few early mornings up the tower; there are hopefully more eggs to come still. Thanx again to all our eagle-eyed (pun!) viewers, and congratulations to both Diamond and Bula.

[Editor note 30-8-16: Arjen has caught some video footage of Diamond first 2016 egg here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-23YU18YsO0 . Thanks heaps, Arjen! ]

16 thoughts

  1. Thanks to our dedicated watchers here in UK, Limpy & Clare, the rest of us have been alerted to the grand news of the arrival of this first precious egg … hoping for more of course!
    Thanks also to you & your team for bringing us this privileged view of Diamon & Bula … fingers firmly crossed for a successful season!

    1. Hi Wendy and UK team,
      Thanks for getting on board again for this 2016 peregrine breeding season. Let’s hope for more eggs and another successful hatching and fledging; almost the full life cycle in front of 2 cameras. Keep watching…
      Scott

    1. Hi Arjen,
      Thanks so much for the URL of your recording of the first egg. I hope your Internet ISP has given you plenty of bandwidth for this breeding season! The time of 3.46am (AEST) sounds a little closer to the mark than our 7.30am!
      Scott

  2. Thanks so much Arjen! Just checked in on Diamond for 5 min. or so, but she is kind of hunched over the egg, so I can’t see if its still just the one. Will keep checking through my day.

  3. I was worried about the lonely egg, but I found some facts on falcons that said it’s common for the first eggs to be left alone until the clutch has been completed, and after that it’s rarer to leave them. So hopefully that’s a sign for us of more to come.

    I also read that if the eggs aren’t viable then the female will lay more eggs around 2 weeks later … but at another nest site. Hope that doesn’t happen!

  4. Thanks Deborah. Here’s hoping poor lonely egg doesn’t get too cold in the meantime. And yes, I do hope she will stay at THIS lovely nest site!

    1. Hi Deborah, Sue and everyone,
      You’re right about the timed incubation techniques that birds use. If they think there are more eggs on the way they tend to slow down the incubation for the first few eggs until they’re all in one collection and then the task begins. Diamond will then spend most of her time on the eggs while Bula will be out catching lunch for her. There’s no panic yet for that one first egg; we’ve seen delays of a couple of days between layings, so we’ll wait and watch. And we haven’t seen tested yet the theory of a double laying in one season. The second laying, after an unsuccessful first clutch, could also happen in the same eyrie (with luck), if it’s early enough in the season, which this indeed is at the moment (approx a week earlier than average). Thanks for your comments!
      Scott

  5. Yes, we do have two eggs and I’ll check for time lain shortly. Just to let you know that it’s quite normal for the first eggs to be left alone; in fact I’m rather surprised how much incubation has been going on. They usually leave the main incubation until all eggs have been lain as this aid the synchronization of the breeding ie they are all the same age when hatched.

  6. I see a very bedraggled Bula did a short shift on the eggs earlier today while Diamond had a short break (it must’ve stopped raining by then, because she returned nice and dry, and off went poor bedraggled Bula into the elements again.

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