Well spotted, night owls. Diamond laid her third egg at 9.27 pm last night, apparently without any difficulty. So good news all round. We’ve never had a fourth egg, but it’s quite common, so let’s wait and see.
The weather has been very very wet this week, with considerable flooding, so I don’t know how the feeding has been progressing, but will spend some time this afternoon going though the tapes to see. I notice Diamond was grabbing a pebbles this morning, which I think indicates hunger. The good news is that a four day sunny period is forecast.
I saw Bula come in yesterday afternoon but he seemed to be empty handed. I clicked on ledge camera and then back to nest camera he was already gone (well unless he quickly jumped on the eggs and Diamond took off .. but I don’t think so!!)
Happy to hear this one was easier on our Diamond.
Just had a peep at Orange via Ledge Cam and Weatherzone – it still looks pretty wet out there. Here’s hoping the good hunting weather returns again VERY VERY soon (surely the prey birds must venture out eventually, all peckish themselves?)
She looks beat … just wait til the kids arrive Diamond!
Did anybody else just see what was going on – between about 6.25-6.28am? Several comings and goings, and there seemed to be at least another bird of some sort out there. It’s hard to tell when you only see it once!
I thought it looked like a cockatoo or something. But it was fast.
What happened at 3:54pm? It looked like Bula turned up with food .. and Diamond got off the eggs. I quickly tried to look on ledge cam and saw one of them flying off with the food and the other sitting on the eggs … was it Bula refusing to share his meal?
I thought they must’ve done a quick changeover. I’ve only seen Diamond eat one meal ‘at home’ while I’ve been watching, and that was after the first egg arrived. The rest of the time she’s been mostly grabbing the food from Bula and having ‘takeaway’, leaving Bula to mind the eggs – at least, that’s what I’ve noticed on the few occasions I’ve been glued to the screen when Bula arrives!
Unfortunately, only the nest cam is recording at present, so I’m none the wiser.
Bula has been very good at egg-incubating, doing regular stints of 20 mins, with some over an hour. He’s actually much better than his predecessor, Beau, who rarely could sit still for that long! And he has been bringing in scraps of prey, but I can’t identify them (not just because of the ledge camera not recording, but mainly because they are just morsels, with no identifying features.
Hmmm. Lots of alone-time for the eggs this morning. ??? Parent bird(s) have been coming and going – mostly going – for about 40 minutes now.
Has anybody actually spotted Bula at all today? Diamond has been pecking away at the gravel a lot today and she left the eggs unattended this morning. I find I can’t tell the birds apart unless I see them both together in the roost and I haven’t seen that at all today. I hope no harm has come to Bula.
Ok, a second bird was in the roost at 2.20pm. It looked to be an interesting exchange. In my mind it was all like “And what time do you call this? I’ve been sitting here for hours!” “Sorry love, I don’t know WHERE the prey’s all got to after that rain”. I saw no food and I don’t know whether the birds swapped over egg duties before one flew off. I really need to get a life.
I think that the birds are probably quite hungry – grabbing at pebbles may be an indication of that. Bula brought in a starling at about 5 pm last night and there was another swap over at 7.35 am, but I couldn’t see any prey (still can’t see the ledge cam).
But I can tell you that Bula has been doing his bit for incubation to give Diamond a rest or a chance to catch some prey herself. He was on the eggs for up to 40 minute periods all morning until 11 am. Since then he has just come in for a bit of interaction.
They are actually quite easy to tell apart as Bula’s beak and feet are a much brighter yellow; he is of course smaller, but I agree that can be hard when they are not together.
Although I haven’t done any actual analysis yet, I am fairly sure that Diamond does a lot more of her own hunting during the breeding season than Swift did, but she (Swift) was much older of course and quite lame towards the end.
Phew! Thanks for the heads-up about Bula’s brighter yellow. I shall work on my recognition skills!