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This is our thirteenth year of observing Pied Oystercatchers breed along the coast near Broome and it gets easier every year! They always nest from the end of June and they always nest in the same place or within a few metres if there is disturbance around the breeding territory. They are so predictable!
It is not quite clear why they do this as it apparently does not affect breeding success. They have written a paper on the “Feasibility of counting breeding Pied Avocets and Black-winged Stilts using drones” It seems to work, actually – though about 20 percent of breeding pairs are being missed by drone surveys.
It didn’t occur to me till I started reading The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird that there was also a possible threat to the eagle herself: poachers, who steal raptor eggs and chicks. McWilliam realizes he’s dealing someone special, a career falcon egg-thief.
Ka’ena Point is also a breeding ground for the Federally protected Laysan albatross, where 45 nests were being carefully monitored by the non-profit Pacific Rim Conservation. They emerged from their bloody rampage leaving fifteen adults dead, and fifteen destroyed nests with either smashed or missing eggs.
They are also inquisitive, so if you observe some near the edge of the road and you want to gain their attention you can turn on your car indicators and they will often investigate rather than run off. They are nomadic and roam looking for food, which is predominately vegetation and therefore they distribute seeds as they roam.
Peripatetic ornithologist Nick Sly has long been a friend of the blog here and has contributed such classics as Green-rumped Parrotlets from Egg to Adult and Forpus passerinus and the Ornithologists of Masaguaral. Juncos breed in much of the U.S. A junco thermoregulating in a snow bank. My Project.
When I finally got around to investigating Bass Rock the week before our trip, I realized why it was at the top of the lists. Birders flock to this haven, as it is a sanctuary for over 150,000 breeding Northern Gannets , making it the world’s largest colony. On a single day, more than 5,000 dead birds were counted.
Oil begins to wash up on the beaches throughout May and June of 2010 May 6, 2010 Oil washes ashore on the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast, an important nesting and breeding area for many bird species. July 24, 2010 BP brazenly says an internal investigation has cleared the company of all gross negligence in the spill.
An empty Pied Oystercatcher nest should mean that there are now chicks and that the parents have been sitting on a clutch of two eggs for twenty eight days. Some nests had clearly been there for some time and had contained eggs until recently. This is typical behaviour for a pair of Pied Oystercatchers that have eggs.
Among birds the Egyptian Vulture uses rocks to crack Ostrich eggs, the New Caledonian Crow and Woodpecker Finch (one of several Darwin Finches of the Galapagos Islands), uses sticks to extract grubs from inside a branch. Egyptian Vultures raised is isolation used rocks to crack eggs presented to them. The behavior was inherent.
Today, we know a little more, such as the fact that an eagle couple produces one egg every two years, but numbers remain low, too low. And, he tells us about the time he was attacked by a parent Philippine Eagle as he handled an egg at the nest, hundreds of feet above the ground. This film could not be made without them.
I noticed a silhouette and we investigated and we got our first Pallid Cuckoo for the year. We discovered another juvenile not far away, so other species have had their eggs swapped out. There have been reports of them breeding in the 1960′s near Derby, which is over 200kms away. The last one seen in the area was in 1999.
A lovely looking and distinctive sounding bird (so they say, I sadly have not seen one…yet), the Kirtland’s Warbler can only be found during its breeding season in Jack Pine forests 5 to 20 years old in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Rapai also accompanies an experienced volunteer on the annual Kirtland’s Warbler Census.
In the non-breeding season, male Baya Weavers sometimes enter the basket-making trade, often with considerable success. Meanwhile, the females seem to have a much more relaxing life, at least in this early stage of the breeding season. You can see why here.
The Bee-eater flock was no doubt flying over when it heard the calls of the House Martins, so came down to investigate. Bee-eaters are ground nesters, laying their eggs in tunnels that they excavate, making them vulnerable to ground predators like Weasels).
Even during the breeding season the birds appear to be quite unwary of humans. Often, as I have been investigating the contents of a nest by making a small hole in the side, the parent birds have come right to the nest, where they immediately begin to repair the damage even before my departure!”.
However, it’s not until the end of the first week of May that the majority of the breeding birds return to our village. The first eggs are usually laid at the end of May or sometimes in the first week of June, but this can vary depending on the weather. Both sexes incubate, with the eggs taking an average of 19 or 20 days to hatch.
In Grey-backed Shrikes (at least those breeding on the Tibetan plateau), the eggs laid during one breeding attempt get larger with time – presumably an attempt to at least partly overcome the disadvantages the last chick faces ( source ). ” So, lesson learned: tailorbirds do not appreciate horror movies.
Mechanisation (ploughing and harvesting in particular), chemical fertilisers and pesticides, fire and predation all contribute to high mortality of eggs, chicks, juveniles and incubating females. In the last year, a broken bustard eggshell was found, but since no displaying was observed, those could have been unfertilized eggs.
Last weekend we went by vehicle to check on the Pied Oystercatchers that breed along that stretch of beach and there has been continued egg loss over the past few weeks. They are persistent at laying eggs and despite the loss of all the eggs from our last visit there were five new eggs. Pied Oystercatcher egg.
Of course, the paper ends with the usual thinly disguised request for more research grants: “This sharing behavior could indicate a high level of social awareness and prosociality that should be further investigated. Surprisingly, they only stay on the breeding grounds for about 5 weeks.
The Bar-backed Partridge was also one of four focal species in an investigation into illegal bird hunting in Southwestern China. Another, somewhat more interesting study suggests that nest sanitation (ornithologists speak for cleaning up your room) helps Common Tailorbirds to recognize and eject parasitic eggs.
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