Frogmouth dramas

A strong squall came through in the afternoon of 25 November and blew one of the chicks from its very exposed roost (roughly position 1) on to the ground.  
It was able to launch itself back into the air - I think quite a feat for a bird only 4 days out of the nest - and made it to a small Acacia (about 10m from the roost).  It was about 1.5m off the ground so I thought quite safe.  The male adult was calling to it and after a few minutes took off to another large Acacia dealbata ( position 2 - about 15m from the roost).  The second chick then joined the adult.  

About 40 minutes later the three of them were all together again in the large Acacia.  The chicks were well snuggled under the adult - it seemed rather like a joey seeking shelter in Mum's pouch.  I didn't take any photographs of this as getting blown around was probably enough stress for them in one day.

Today (26/11) I went to look for them and found the whole family at approximately position 3.
This is a close up of Mum: she was a tad difficult to spot initially, and this makes me wonder if she has been lurking here throughout the brooding period.
 Here is Dad and the chicks.
 Both parents seemed to be zoning out, while the chicks were very alert.  Frances commented that when she was watching them yesterday they had been very interested in a begging Australian Magpie on the ground below their tree.
The following day Dad and the chicks were in a new roost: a very exposed dead branch towards  rgw ford over Whiskers Creek.  On the 27th they had moved back up the Hill and spent the rather wet day perched on the rail fence near the bore.
On the 29th, Mum reappeared near the others back in the eucalypts behind our Leylandii cypress.
 One of the chicks seems to be practising the "you can't see me" pose while the other adheres to the steely gaze.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Insects from pine trees

Image
This afternoon (13/1/2015) we were looking out of our sunroom and noticed a strange bit of mist.  On getting my binoculars on the case I found it to be a cloud of tens of thousand of insects.  They appeared with naked eye to be flying away, but with binoculars I thought they were circling. Here are some images In the second one it may be possible to see there are two streams coming from the top of each tree. There was a loud buzzing noise but that could just be several thousand wings. Earlier in the day Frances had been to some nearby willows and they were infested with many little black soft bodied insects.  Perhaps they shifted to the pines and were swarming? Help!! Any information welcome. A colleague, from Wamboin, had noticed a similat phenomenon, but involvng eucalypts rather than pines!  Here are the photos he took with his phone. I have consulted some expert friends.   Their responses were: I would have gone for chironomids. I rec...
Read more

A tour of the West (part 1)

Image
A friend from my time in the UN sent me some photos of her family trip along Route 66.  They did this is a large camperwagon rather than a Chevy Corvette (apparently the kids jacked up about being offered a trip in the trunk).  It seems to have been a very good trip for them and most interesting to see their photos.  It was also educational for me, as I found out the German for rocking chair (schaukelstuhl, since you ask). They did 7200 miles in 30 days - a pretty serious bit of distance. This made me think of the trips we did in 1981 when living in Denver.  Frances initiated that idea by getting a book about the National Parks of the West  and marking interesting places.  I then worked out a route on a Rand-McNally Road Atlas (GPS was unknown then  - as were iPhones, personal computers and the internet).  From memory, taking nearly the whole Summer school holidays we covered about 10,000 miles in 70 days.  Here, approximately,  are ...
Read more

Maslins beach rules

Image
Anyone who was in Adelaide in the 1970s will be having a good nudge nudge at that title.  However the beach is really nice even though it is the haunt (in Summer ) of naked people.  (As an aside one of the 'van park staff was talking to some other guests and commented that the sights on the beach in Summer were not at all exciting.)  In April it is the haunt of seniors, many of them exercising their dogs, and thus a far more attractive place. Getting to the beach was a walk of about 1km along roads, from our van.  The second half of this went past a rather daggy looking paddock with many formed ridges in it, as though it was irrigated, although a water sources wasn't evident.  The paddock got interesting towards the end as some green parrots appeared.  Thanks to Frances eye for detail we have subsequently identified these as Elegant Parrots: my first lifer for 2014.    The locale is indicated by the red lines in this mudmap: Here are the bird...
Read more