This week Australia is being stung by an almost country-wide heatwave, in many places reaching above 40degC+ (104degF+) for the whole week. It means treacherous conditions for all birds of prey, who will no doubt rest during the heat of the day and then try to hunt earlier and later. Orange is west-north-west of Sydney by about 4-5 hours (in the dark red bit!!).
Tough weather for humans, but much tougher for the animals, birds and poor livestock, who are already in a terrible state of drought. We’ll monitor the falcons closely this week. I haven’t been able to update the CSU camera pages yet, with apologies; my CSU login has been cancelled due to a change in other work contracts via CSU, which shouldn’t have affected my login anyway! As soon as I have access back again I’ll go change the camera URLs. In the meantime you can refer to the previous post for YouTube feeds….
Thanks Scott for your update. I am horrified here in Europe with these temperatures. 38°C is forecast for Wednesday today. Hope all will be well for falcons and other animals. There are people watching almost 24/7 your cams.
*mopping brow* This heat really is dreadful. Diamond must’ve found a cool spot for sleeping as she spent Monday and Tuesday nights away from the box, and didn’t put in an appearance at all until Tuesday afternoon. Xavier, wings spread, has been keeping watch from the ledge on and off during the day. Gaama is still making his presence known (noisy little beastie!) although he hasn’t visited the box.
I hope they’re managing to find enough to eat.
Let’s hope they are able to keep cool and keep crops full. I am lucky up here in Bellingen (mid-northern NSW) as so far the heat has not been excessive, which is unusual as this is usually very hot and humid at this time of year. I get back to Orange on Sunday night, by which time I’m hoping for slightly cooler, and wetter weather.
A video of Diamond keeping a watchful eye on another larger bird of prey – a whistling kite, I think.
https://youtu.be/56Xwy2Rr_Mo
Thanks Scott!