April 28, 2013

Today's update...whew, I drove 157 miles and checked 11 nests, but did loop back and checked four of those twice. Here are some tidbits and follow ups from past
posts...the male that would not open his eye last week, is fine this week. The eagle nest that had a goose in it, still has a goose in it. Boy that is going to be a big jump for those goslings...don't know how they will survive it. A suicide leap. I don't want to think about it. I found several more nests that have laid eggs and I read several more bands. I also observed a female standing on the nest edge food begging...and when the male finally returned, he sat down at first as if he was incubating. But the female had never been seen in incubating posture. After about five minutes he got up and started preening. I mention this because sometimes these birds do sit down when they do not have eggs to sit on. It was quite windy for a while today, perhaps that was his reason for hunkering down. Anyway, I have learned that you do have to watch for a while before you conclude that they are incubating, and I like to see both birds taking their turn at sitting...then you know there are eggs. I have already found a change in birds on one nest. A banded female was replaced by an unbanded one. There always seems to be a game of musical nests in the early days of the breeding season. I spent several hours at another nest trying to ID the male...but he never showed up. Hmmmm. In fact the female chased away another unbanded male, so I am wondering if my timing was just bad or if something has happened to her banded male. So now I get to have a beer, don't I?