Just as I was leaving work, I heard a ruckus from the tower. Marragaay was nagging Diamond, and being seriously ignored. M took off, followed by D and I managed to snap her leaving.
When I got down to vantage point to the roost tree, there was an adult and juvenile (eating), but I couldn’t be sure who was there. I’m hoping it was Xavier and Bali as I haven’t seen Xavier for over two days, which is highly unusual.
I see there’s a youngster in the box tonight 🙂
How on earth can you tell which youngster is which when they’re not together to compare? I’m in awe.
Thanks for update!
Yes, I see a juvenile in the box now. Bali…? (looks smaller)
I may be wrong, but the adult in the box at 6:34 am wasn’t X…? He (or she) also looked smaller…
Is that a Xavier I see? (8.15am) or an intruder – he appears to be exploring the box – box, ledge, box, ledge…
Trying to get a look at the FRONT of this bird, who is standing coyly in the scrape and not allowing a front view! He/she? Adult/juvenile?
ok – some buff patches on bib but no streaks – and for a moment there I thought some scrape prep was about to happen. Cilla, is this one of ‘our’ birds?
There’s an adult male in the box now .. I’m assuming (hoping) that it is Xavier. I’ll go through last night and this morning’s tapes and confirm!
The simple way for me to tell male from female is with a ruler, measuring the length of the body and tail or from top of head when sitting up straight to top of screen and I keep a little tally of minima and maxima…
In the field it’s harder, of course, but that was definitely Diamond last night and the juvenile was as big as her, so must have been Marragaay. I had a photo of both of them to do the comparison, but didn’t upload it as it wasn’t very interesting otherwise.
In response to Kaoru, bird in the box 12/12 at 0634 was Diamond a/c to my records. Sometimes she hunches up and looks smalleer.
Thanks Cilla.
I hope today’s adult is X!
Sorry, despite have TWO recordings of the period from 0800-0900, al I can tell you is that it was a male. It looked the same as Xavier, except perhaps a bit broader. I didn’t witness the exploration of the box, nor a frontal view. I had lots of screen freezes. If anyone has a screenshot, that would be great.
Hi Cilla,do you need this?
I do not know the video owner, I just saw it.
I hope he is Xavier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgAVtXcud9M&t=25s
I have no reason to suppose the male adult (with very full crop) in the box today was not Xavier. However I didn’t see the early morning recording that Sue mentioned when he was ‘exploring’. Was he actually looking up and around?.
I did look at the youtube that Chao uploaded and it looks like X.
5-10 minutes before the youTube video he went back and forth between the box and the ledge and spent a little time ferretting about in the far back corner. I thought the to-ing and fro-ing made it seem the space wasn’t familiar to him and he didn’t seem to have the bouncy zippiness of Xavier – but he looked quite comfortable standing in the scrape, and even did some scrapey preparation.
I do hope it WAS Xavier, just checking things out after a couple of days’ absence…