No pere pawn visuals today, alas, but we caught them in flagrente at the top of the tower on Saturday. Sue helped out by finding a youtube of visuals with audio, so we are pretty confident that mating has happened…and it’s probably not the first time. Expect eggs in about three weeks. Enjoy.
We’ve also noticed that Diamond is getting distinctly fussy about accepting starling as an ‘offering’. I know she’ll eat starlings when hungry, or with a brood to feed, but it’s interesting that she’s rejecting most of them at this stage. Of course, he’s much smaller than she is, so it’s harder for him to tackle the larger, plumper birds such as pigeons and parrots, but my guess is that he needs to try and that’s the message she’s trying to give. He did bring in a magpie-lark the other day, which I’m guess would be a lot tastier than a starling, so he’s trying!
Hooley Dooley .. what was the bang at the end :O
Ha ha ha, the clunk at the end is a beauty. Something to do with the pump in the water tower?
Xavier is now bringing in 3 prey items a day, most days, although I haven’t seen today’s offerings (Mon 6th). It’s really cute when he brings something in and just waits around with his prize until he’s sure Diamond won’t come and get it. Hasn’t he “grown up” since the early step-dad days?
They’ve been at it again this morning!(Thurs 9th) Mating noises heard at 7am and again at 7.18am. In between those times, Xavier came skipping back into the box, all chirpy, and starting doing a bit of scrape preparation. He’s so funny. I have the YouTube cam running at the moment and they’re at it AGAIN – 7.26!
He’s still being pretty good about bringing prey in 3 times a day – although it isn’t always fresh (often rather stuff-legged and crunchy looking, ha ha!), and it’s starling more often than Diamond can bear.