Sibling agression

I hope this doesn’t keep up.   The older chick Marragaay had real go at the younger one, Bali, with considerable blood loss.    I was just thinking how well they were doing.   I was trying to get up to date, but was only up to noon today, so I decided to fast forward so I could give you an update, when I saw this.

Bad blood between siblings

VIDEO   20171015 sibling agression

They are now cuddle up in the corner as if nothing has happened, but Bali is very quiet (but moving).    Mum is sitting on the ledge.   I haven’t observed this behaviour before in nine years, but it may not be unknown.  Bickering yes, but not drawing blood.   I’ll check and see how much much prey was brought in this afternoon tomorrow, but I’ve had it tonight.

The only other thing of note to happen is that it’s possible that a couple of bats were brought in as prey very early in the morning.  I can’t be sure as the images are not great.

20 thoughts

  1. After breakfast (about 7.30am) it looked as if Marragaay was about to have another go at Bali, but Diamond got between the pair of them, squashing Marragaay into the corner and giving Bali a chance to back away a little. At least, that’s what it looked like to me – but of course, my interpretation of events is more than likely coloured by that awful earlier display of aggression…. If nothing else, this might at least show how peregrine parents deal with sibling fights. Divide and conquer?

  2. I have to admit that I was worried that there would be only one chick left alive this morning. However, they look fine now at 0759. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll check out that event on the tape later.

  3. I’ve had messages from other falcon-watchers that it is quite common for one bird to vomit on another, so perhaps that’s all it was, but it was very blood-coloured vomit if that’s the case. It does seem odd that Bali didn’t resist or try and move away at all.

  4. I did notice that during the 7:40 feeding the big chick got most of the food. So maybe it was just that he was a piggy and ate more than his crop and stomach could hold and he threw up? Just making a guess as I am new to falcon watching.

  5. Mea culpa. This is why I normally don’t do updates until I’ve caught up; but that’s almost impossible at the moment.

    Now I’ve had a chance to go through the afternoon recordings, I can see what has happened. At 1802, Diamond brought in a large, fat pigeon and stuffed this into the chicks, mostly Marragaay, Bali barely getting a look in, although Di had her back to us, so can’t be sure. THEN, just over 16 minutes later, Xavier brought in a starling bit and Di fed them again. That resulted just over 40 minutes feeding in under an hour.

    They, or at least Marragaay, was so stuffed, he/she could barely sit. At 1905, five minutes after last feed finished, up it all came all over Bali’s back, and of course it looked just like blood because it was, just not Bali’s, thank goodness.

  6. The stream freezes a lot for me but it does look like Bali is not getting as much food as Marragaay. Of course most of the time the parent is blocking the feeding activity and it is hard to say that definitively.

  7. Now I’m not so sure again as I noticed a large mark on Bali’s back early this morning, which appears to be a wound with drying blood. Seems unlikely that M’s chuck-up would still be there!

  8. As I can’t see the screen (always black), I was worrying about the little Bali. Thanks for the relieving update.

  9. Thank you for the gory details, Cilla, including your understandable misunderstanding 😉

    I have been thru 2 torturous days of recordings and never got a hint of any of it! All I was getting from the nestcam, between blackages, was a little pile of eyases in the corner with an adult tail-tip.

    Here’s a set of upright-ish chicks, and I thought it was all I was going to get:

    https://i.imgur.com/JojORyk.jpg

    Until…

  10. … 09:50hr this morning, a prey-drop! But no feed, it was frozen out. But there’s a nice little episode of parent tending toes on the ledge.

    1m55s VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ybjoDGVvA
    .
    (For some reason the ledge cam is a lot easier to navigate and less overwhelmed with mini-freezes, between the blackages, than the nest.)

  11. Re post-before-last “Di is very warm on the ledge”… second thoughts – was it Xav?
    .
    Xavier brought in food and looks purposeful and competent, going about feeding the eyases – but the stream went down before we could get a good look – there was no delivery on the ledge cam.

    1m26s VIDEO = https://youtu.be/pDzcyTOtKkA

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