All photo's by Chris and Chad Saladin.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Derby Cathedral Peregrines
Look at these beautiful clored skies in the early Derby Morning. At 6, the youngsters already where having breakfast. Afterwards: perching, preening and a little flying. In one of the pics one is flying away, very special to catch that!
The 3 tiercels do seek eachothers company. Watching them it is obvious there are 2 who can get along very well indeed. They show affectionate behaviour like preening eachothers feathers. The smallest, which will be tiddler is not part of that. He's fine just by himself. He is a qute little chap. Strong personality. He's done a marvelous job growing up as the youngest one, being born days after the eldest! Thanks to the care of the falcon, and lots of prey he's made it. Very happy with
that.
We know that the falcon, or better nature lets her put extra testosteron in the last egg. This testosteron makes a strong hatchmuscle. This very same muscle makes eyases be able to keep their little head up high when food arrives. So they can beg. With the extra testosteron the last eyas can hatch quickly and keep begging longer. So he will be fed. Tiddler had his own tactics however. He just waited calmly until everybody had their dinner. Without to much effort he started begging as soon as all the other ones dropped exhausted and sleepy from the food. Sometimes that ment that all the food was gone. But that seemed to be a calculated risk. This way he got his food without wasting to much energy. Intelligent little chap he is. He will make it, I'm sure.
Read all about the Derby Peregrines on the Derby Blog:
http://derbyperegrines.blogspot.com/
To visit the Derby Photo Blog of Jon Salloway, with amazing photo's of the Derby peregrines.:
http://derby-peregrines.blogspot.com/
Rochester: talon tagging fun
The Rochester fledglings are doing great. Diamante dropped by in the nestbox to show himself. And he looks very wonderful. Kaver spent some time the other morning in front of cam 1 and we can see why Mariah is so happy when he comes back in spring. He is one very impressive tiercel!
One of the juvies had some what of a crash encounter in front of cam 1. But no harm done.
And some pics of the talon-tag action of the juvies. They sure have a lot of fun!
The video is by Carol:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=171aim5l.79ii8uel&Uy=g3oegl&UAUTOLOGIN_ID=12810055315&Ux=0&UV=565150678109_93988812615
Bonding behaviour
After the youngsters have left the nestsite we always see the adults, especially the male come back to the scrape. He is spending many hours over there standing in the entrance, perching. He will eventually go inside and start scraping bowles.
Many people have asked me, is there gonna be a new clutch. No way! Starting a clutch has everything to do with androgens, and the production of these is being influencend by the increasing amount of daylight hours in the spring. Now that summer is blooming, the daylight hours are not increasing anymore. The androgenlevels are dropping.
This behaviour of the male is all about bonding to the site. And to his partner. After the juvies have left the nestsite is his again. This is the site he picked for his female, it is his choice, his estate in a way and he is taking it back. He leaves his footprint. He is marking it again with bowles.
The female will enter as well and they will display in courtship behaviour: head-bow-low, eechupping. This is bonding behaviour, a conformation to eachother of the bond they have. Like a renewal of the vows in a way. It may even envolve copulations when the juvi's are still around.
So no second clutches but a very special bonding behaviour: we belong together. We have raised and fledged yet another healthy couple of juveniles. And we will do that together the next time at this nestsite.
Although copulations are only with the purpose of reproduction in the avian world, here it has a second function. The one of bonding, of confirming the pairbond. We see copulations as well during territorial disputes, With the same function: I belong to you, you belong to me. You'll make me strong I will fight for you.
And that makes these exeptional beings even more special.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
