Saturday, May 3, 2008
Oberhausen: prey problems
Hilarious today. The 3 juvi's where so hungry around noon when the female broughtin prey. They grabbed it from her and pulled in into the scrape...... Yes and what now ? They do not know what to do with an unplucked prey. Look at them standing there, the 3 of them. Looking so diappointed.
What shall we do gang, do you know how to get to the meat? Don't ask me, no idea. Let's ask Mom. But she played deaf: You grabbed it from me, so make my day. But in the end she of course came to help and fed them. But the look of those three eyases with the decapitated complete pigeon in front of them makes the pic of the day. No doubt about that.
De Mortel
Well she is something else our S2. She makes a mess of the scrape, covers her eyases with pigeonwings, broods on prey as well as on her eyases, stumbles over the leftovers and makes everybody smile.
Today her latest stunt: she tried to brood all 4 eyeses who are almost 14 days old and are much to big to cover anymore. So she stayed standing up with the whole bunch around her legs. And it looked like this:
Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project
Jus a glimpse of 3 of the 4 eggs, containing full grown eyases preparing for their great escape. It won't be long now before hatching commences
Oberhausen Wanderfalken: 35 days old
The 3 Oberhausen juvi-chicklets are 35 days old now. They are changing rapidly now into juveniles. They do a lot of wingflapping to excersise the flight muscles. The anatomy of the peregrine falcon, the fastest creature on our blue planet is completely focused on his dive-bombing prey catching behaviour.
There are two main flight muscles attaching to each wing. The pectoralis muscle powers the downstroke and is proportionately very large in peregrine falcons (up to 35% of body weight). The supracoracoideus is much smaller and has a tendon which curves around to attach to the top of the humerus. The supracoracoideus can provide power to the upstroke if required but more usually produces a rapid rotation of the humerus at the top of the upstrok. In addition there are 48 other muscles within the wing and around the shoulder which produce the wide range of movements of the wing and its feathers.
The large flightmuscles can only get strong when really flying, that is the real excersis of course. But in order to fly they do have to have some muscle building to do. That is why juvi's spent a lot of time flapping.
So they have enough strength to get back up, when down. For most of the time the first flight is a free fall down. And they have seldom the power to get up to the nest again. But there are exceptions. Hope of DE Mortel 2007 flew like he never did anything else. Blue Foot of the Hamilton nestsite 2007 likewise as did Rhea Mae of the Rochester 2006 scrape. So these 3 German wanderfalken , keep on flapping and get strong to fledge.
Zurich: 2 awesome eyases
What a catch early this morning. As usual I log in on the Zurich site to watch the nestsite. I was convinced there where eggs, and eyases, but never saw anything to proove it. The nestbox is out of site on the left. No webcam inside. So we won't know if there are eyases until they are old enough to come out. And that is often not until they are 3 weeks. By the looks of these 2 they must be around 23 days I guess.
That means they are about the same age as the JRB eyases.
Today was a beautiful spring day on the continent. So they stayed out all afternoon, laying in the doorstep. We will probably see a lot more of these 2 eyases!
James River Bridge
All of a sudden the view was obstructed by the head of Elizabeth in front of the cam. Very upclose and personal indeed. What an unexpected surprise to be able to see her so closeby.
So it is a catch , it lasted very short.
Harrisburg: 4 eyases
Yesterday 3 eyases hatched, and this morning there where 4 little white chicklets in the scrape. One more egg to go.
Watch the video of a feeding of today!
Cobb Island
The eyases are laying flat out. Well don't worry they are not sick. The temp is up.
Today in Virginia it was 80 F ( 27 C). That's real warm.
Birds have no sweat glands so evaporation, one way to lose heat, can occur only via respiratory system. So they start panting. The eyases lay flat with their legs stretched. In that way they increase the amount of skin that has no feathers on it. And can cool off.
In the winter peregrines for instance withdraw one foot into their plumage to reduce heat loss and for the same reason they tuck head & neck under their wing to reduce heat loss.
So in live streaming webcams it looks very disturbing, those little babies panting and laying there like their very sick. But it is very natural behaviour.
Oberhausen: evening meal
How they grow these 3 awesome juveniles. The 2 females are together all the time, the little male is a "einzelgänger" as we say that in German. Keeping to himself.
Zwolle: 8 days old
The 3 eyases are growing like they should. Both parents take very good care of the 3 little ones. The eldest one is the most assertive one. And begs the best of the 3. It's always the same, the eldest is the strongest and the most assertive one. In all scrapes I'm watching this season it is the same story. Except James River Bridge, there are 2 dominant over the third one.
But peregrine parents do their utmost to feed all eyases until they stop begging.
Heidelberg: 20 days old
Time flies, these 2 are already 20 days old. Around day 20, some yellow/beige becomes visible in the patch behind the eye, and a distinct dark edge to the wings becomes visible as the flight feathers continue to grow in length beneath the layer of down.
Zurich: 2 eyases
After days of watching the behaviour of he parents I was quite convinced there had to be eyases. And today I finally saw them. On this beautiful sunny day 2 eyases appeared on the ledge. I think they are about the age of the Rome and James River Bridge eyases so about 24-25 days. What a catch. It makes my day.
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