Not Exactly a Sitting Duck
Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 03:40PM The Bateleur Eagles have started sitting, which means that, within 4 days of me photographing them mating (see previous post), the female laid her single egg. In 52 days' time - providing there are no mishaps - the chick will hatch. The parent birds, who share the incubation responsibilities, have a long haul ahead of them.
When I checked the nest the day before yesterday, I could see the eagles had been lining their nest with fresh green leaves, but the birds themselves were nowhere to be seen:
This morning, the male was sitting on the nest. I did not go as close as I usually do, as I did not want to disturb him on the nest - even though this pair have raised many a chick with cars driving backwards and forwards below their nest:
The female was keeping an eye on everything from the mating tree:
[See the Bateleurs mating in my previous post.]
Other birds seem to be in the breeding mood too, possibly prompted by a recent smattering of rain. It's almost as if the rains might come back again, the weather has been so strange. It was enough to get the White-browed Sparrow Weavers building again:
And one of the resident Egyptian Goose pair has vanished from the river. A lone goose normally means the other one is on the nest, so perhaps we will have goslings on the river again before long. It's been a while since they successfully managed to raise a brood here:
The Spur-winged Plovers are up to their same old tricks again - chasing everything that moves (except - wisely perhaps - the crocodile). The Dikkops pose no threat to the Plovers whatsoever, but that makes no difference to these most bullying of birds:
The Yellow-billed Stork, as usual, remains haughtily aloof from all the shenanigans:
Some birds have already nested, like the Northern White Crowned Shrikes...whose immature offspring, confusingly, have a brown crown:
And as I started this post with rather a large bird of prey, I'm going to end it with a rather small one. This delightful Pearl-spotted Owlette lives around our house and is getting quite tame...today it seemed more bothered with something higher up in the tree than it did with me and my camera:
Reader Comments (2)
Keep an eye on our website, www.stanfordbirding.co.za for the upcoming Stanford Birding Photographic Competition 2011. Regards, Philippa
Thanks Philippa - I'll take a look at that!