LEAVE YOUNG BIRDS BE!!


Please, do not hamper a young bird's life by picking it up, and taking it home with you. It is calling its parents to help them in locating it.
After fledgling from the nest, the parent birds will keep feeding it, and look out for it, until it will be able to look after itself.
And the reason you cannot see a parent is because of your own proxomity to the young bird. And while you are ebating if or not you should take the bird home, you keep the parent from giving it well needed nutrition in the form of a meal!


Photos

The photos on this blog are all taken by me. If there is any picture you might want to use for any other than personal use, please drop me a line to the email address shown in the sidebar on the right.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Two enigmas

Last week, when I went out to the shop one day, Francis showed me half a shell of what was once a blue bird's egg. He promised to put it on my table at my laptop so that I could take photos and look it up.
Underway I was confinced that Dunnocks lay blue eggs, what was bugging me even more, of course was Who had Taken this egg from the nest, and Where Was The Nest situated?

Once I got home, other things were on the agenda, like putting away shopping, making a cup of tea. I missed the shell when I moved a pot of soy yogurt to the edge of the table, to make it easier to put it into the fridge.
Only when I closed the door of the fridge, did I saw the way I had even further damaged the little egg shell. Without being able to tell you how I had done that! (which is what I thought was far worse than the act!, LOL.) Enough has remained intact for a possible ID, I hope. The colour is very pale, and the surface is not the glossy egg of the Dunnock's egg.
But who had taken this egg, to break it above my garden? Was it one of the pair of Magpies which have been flying around and about the house and garden again, who then took the egg inside its beak and flew above the front?
Or am I totally off, did another predator raid a nest in an attempt to catch the sitting parent, and if so which predator and where to the nest's location?

Broken eggshell: pale blue, rough surface.




I have been very worried, for awhile I had thought that it was JJ who had caught this virus or disease which made him/her loose the head feathers, get an 'infected' eye and was being pecked on by its fellow members of the clan and by the larger Rooks. It is one of the other juveniles, who had been born on the roof of the school. The parents, one of those Jackdaw partnerships which nests in the school chimneys. I've long been trying to photograph the Corvids on the roof there and on the roof of the community Hall, built also on the school grounds.
Trouble is, there is a lot of mesh fencing between my lens and the school
JJ.


Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica

JJ's parents, on the roof of the school and the hall next door, preparing for the next brood of youngsters.





When I found out later to fill up the birdfood in the planter, I found something which saddened me a lot more. The intact skeleton of an adult Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes with its tail still propped up, as only the Wren can.
Was a very sad day, which is why I not posted this till now. Last summer I lost a young Wren, but to loose both a probable chick and an adult of two different species, broke my heart, without telling me much on the predator's identity. (The egg was not from a Wren's nest, btw)

Here a cropped picture of a ?


2 comments:

  1. Aww, it's so sad when you see a bird that has been killed. It affects me the same way. A wonderful picture of JJ. Such a handsome fellow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Crow. Thing is, the tail was still attached, those beautifuly soft feathers still in perfect shape, as if it had not noticed that it needed to die down the shine of those cocked tail feathers. I still get damp eyes just thinking about the lovely little bird which was attached.
    c'est la vie?

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting Birding on Wheels; All comments left here, will be appreciated and I will answer as soon as possible to your comments.
Yoke.