Peace reigns in our falcon family. Apologies to those fretting about our chicks – it was just overzealous feeding and a chuck-up, after all. No nastiness at all (except chucking over your sibling’s back, which is a bit disgusting…)
Here we have a scene where Xavier had brought in a small prey after long drought and started feeding chicks. Then Diamond trumped him with (I think) an eastern rosella. She took over the feeding, so X started eating his remnants. Then he thought he should help out, but Di nicked his prey and thwarted him!
VIDEO 20171016 family supper
This happened last night. I’m not making that mistake again (ie jumping ahead with no history or context)! But I should catch up tomorrow. Have to leave…Amadeus beckons.
I think I boobed and posted on Cilla’s previous blog instead of today’s, so I’m copying them over – can’t have Helios popping in to find nothing to watch! 😉
Apologies if this is a “nuisance”.
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Hooray, a little while ago a few moments of life showed the 2 eyases quite perky – but the dang wasp attracting their interest
2m10s VIDEO = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhxxo6wZAvQ
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
(Last one, but I’ve got loads more to catch up on.)
Xav with another meal – almost every bite of which went to one very hungry eyas.
No editing except to cut out mini-freezes.
3m14s VIDEO https://youtu.be/lDafoDoKkko
Sadly, the young eyas at 367 Collins building passed away. It never recovered from the hot day and stopped feeding. The older one is doing fine and eating well. It was nice to see little Bali compete and eat the food that Xavier was feeding them.
We have the advantage of being cooler here. Partly because it is rarely hot in Orange, at least not before January, and because the youngsters have shade.
In fact, in ten years we have only lost one chick that hatched and that was Aspro, who (as sole chick) fell out of the box during a storm a few days before fledging and was never found. I still remember Swift’s face when she returned to the box and couldn’t find him.
It will be interesting to compare how often our chicks are left alone compared to those without shade. I’ll talk to Victor about comparing notes.
Our main problem has been egg thinness with our old female, Swift, most of whose eggs cracked prior to hatching over her last two breeding years, but Diamond’s seem to be much thicker, even too much perhaps.
I noticed that the mother rarely left the Melbourne nest when both chicks were there. When it was really hot, she was the shade for the chicks. She got really upset when the older chick started wandering, and she tried to contain him but he still managed to escape her and wander to the edge of the ledge. The poor mother was running from one chick to the other trying to shade them. On Monday, the older chick escaped the nest box and moved to the other side of the ledge which got shaded a lot quicker. The younger one could not, and that’s when he started to deteriorate. Those chicks were of the same size whereas here, I noticed the Bali is smaller than Marragaay. Both nests get plagued by flies, I guess attracted by the prey. Now, the mother at the Melbourne nest has been leaving the chick alone for longer periods of time.
Thanks for your observations on other perry nests, Jane, I only have time for this one 🙂
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Black screen almost all night, just the huddle of chicks emerging very occasionally for a few moments 🙁
At 06:21hr the picture broke thru, but only for 6 minutes – then at 07:21hr we got a bit longer, both babies still alive and active 😉
https://i.imgur.com/JCldOyH.jpg
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I’m ploughing onwards thru the day, some very large feathers are really upsetting me – I know there’s a million-to-one chance that I’ll have captured the owner.
Today’s videos and snaps are embedded on RSPB, so quite labour-saving for you and for me (on here, I’d either have to do all separate posts or all in one post with links you have to C&P).
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/wildlife/f/2543/p/193197/1149196.aspx#1149196
As you will see, we didn’t win that million-to-one chance 😉
Thanks Scylla for the updates. I don’t check on the chicks often because the feed freezes up and it is nice to catch on the happenings at the nest.