Very early this year, about five families of Black-shouldered Kites fledged their young over about a three week period. The mice seemed also to have had a little population explosion of their own in one of the near-by fields and the families moved in to both train their young and feed them. Some of the more advanced young were quite capable of hunting on their own, but it didn’t stop them trying to score a meal from a harassed father as he flew in with a mouse for one of his young. For a week or so there would as many as 16 Kites all airborne or sitting on fence posts consuming a meal.
But, as it works out, as the young grew stronger and the free feeding ceased and no doubt the mice went on a well deserved holiday, the young Kites began to disperse. The adults that had flown in to supervise, also moved back to their own territory. The female of the home pair also took off, not unusual to see that happen as she needs to build up her strength after 8 weeks or more of sitting on eggs and young. The male continued to stay around and watch over the territory.
Two young juvenile Kites continued to roost together down at one end of the paddock, and as they both had a fair cover of juvenile colouring for several weeks we concluded they were from a clutch and hadn’t yet felt the need to move on.
However as time went on, and the juvenile feathers began to fade and the body language changed, it became clear what we were looking at was in fact a new pair. No doubt they had met up during the paddock mouse madness days, and well, like nature taking its course they became a couple. Now that their juvenile has mostly faded, and their eye colour is still a rich brown, it’s probably to early to conclude they are going to nest anytime in the future. But it is rather charming to see them sitting happily together. Ahh, those teen-age years.
Enjoy
They have quickly established a spot at the end of the treeline as their own territory.This is the day we began to wonder if they were more than just occasional friends. They spent the morning moving about the paddock, and sitting and hunting together.Plenty of colour was on display for both of themBack at home a week later and the colours are beginning ot change. Still tinged with apricot on the grey back and wing feathersOnly just a few flecks on the chest and the female is starting to look larger. Another favourite spot, and by now most of the colour is gone.This is the female, she had dropped from the roost tree and took a mouse in front of me.The end of March and the feather colours are gone, but the eye colour still is a brown.
The interesting part to me is toward the end and titled Mental Mappers. I can’t provide a direct link, and it’s a long scroll down. It refers to “….the specific skills that are hallmarks of good navigators These include the ability to estimate how far you’ve traveled, to read and remember maps (both printed and mental), to learn routes based on a sequence of landmarks and to understand where points are relative to one another.” ” Two of those skill are ‘Route Following’ and …and what’s often termed ‘survey knowledge,’ the ability to build and consult a mental map of a place.”
When my Mother-in-Law was getting on in years the family pointed out she was unable to move around on her own as, “She didn’t know where she was.” Now, I had to take exception to that as I’d travelled about with her quite extensively and was more than confident in her ability to go from home, to the shops, pick up a bottle of milk and return safely. And to venture in and out of several stores along the route. I discovered that they were judging her lack of ability because they had taken her to a shopping centre she’d never been to before and she had asked, “So, how do you get out of here?” I’m certain I’d have done the same. New place, new location, no mind-map.
As a young tacker, I grew up with a highly respected bushman. He could wander about for hours and still know where he was, where the start point might be, or the next spot to go visit. His simple secret was he named locations as he went along. Easy to remember names, like places, “The Eiffel Tower”, “The Burnt Log”, “Wombat’s Home”, and others. The landmarks would be no more than 200-500meters apart. So if he was somewhere, all he had to do was find one of his landscape features and follow back from there. When I walk the Eynesbury Forest, or the Woodlands Historic Park, I still use that system.
I’ve sat for an hour so so with so many Brown Falcon’s and watched them watching. Then when they fly, it’s a deliberate run at almost ground level, to swoop on something, or onto the next chosen perch. As they slip past a bush here, around a plant there, through an opening in the grass, it’s hard not to be impressed at their mapping ability.
And just in case you never leave home without GPS, here is a conclusion from the study.
…A follow-up with 13 of the volunteers three years later revealed that those who had used GPS the most during the intervening period experienced greater declines in their ability to navigate without GPS, strongly suggesting that GPS reliance causes diminished skills, rather than poor skills leading to greater GPS use.
We’ve also been following a pair of Black-shouldered Kites. They fledged two young about two months ago, and the young, as normal have now moved away. As soon as her young fledge, the female usually hands responsibility of their care and feeding to the male. She then takes a few weeks extended leave, and goes off to replenish her system from the 8 weeks or so of sitting on the nest. For some reason this female had not returned for about two months. Her male kept station and I was beginning to think he was on his own. However the other day, we found them both hunting in the paddock. The picture on this page is of her sweeping in with a catch. Not sure if she took the mouse, or if he’d passed it on to her. Will have to wait to see what, if anything develops.
I’ve lamented in a few places the past couple of weeks, that we have been a bit bird depleted. Many of the areas where we normally work, seem to be quiet to a point.
Over the past few months most of the Black-shouldered Kites, that we have followed for a number of years, have finished nesting and have departed along with their fledged young to places far-flung. Hard to understand what has changed. The food seems plentiful, the weather I have to admit is anything but helpful, and perhaps as autumn is around the corner, the birds know things that we are not privy to.
At Point Cook, one pair has had around 5 clutches over the past couple of years. But they too have fledged the young and the trees and paddocks are empty. The female normally would leave the nest area as soon as the young are ready to fledge and bulk up and return a couple of weeks later and begin to plan the next clutch. This time she doesn’t seem to have returned. Perhaps, she has grown a bit tired of this nesting business and is looking for a break.
The male, to his credit, has maintained his station in the area. But each time we pass by, I wonder if he will still around.
We were travelling a local back road the other day, and spied a lone white shape high up on an old tree. EE cried, Black-shouldered Kite. We didn’t have time to explore, but were going the same way a couple of days later and stopped for a looksee. And there we found a pair resting in the same general area. She was quite vocal and in the end he got the message and took off down the paddock, presumably to collect an offering for her.
The morning was very overcast and now I was left with light-grey and white birds on a milky grey backdrop. I had been thinking of setting the camera to Black and White mode so decided to see what would happen. This one was shot with the “Red Filter” setting—makes the red eye of the bird a little lighter grey.
Be interesting to go back again, particularly after this bout of hot weather, to see if they have intent to nest,or if it was just a nomadic rest spot.
Interesting to see how much larger the female is than the male.Time to go.
We’ve had two young Black-shouldered Kites fledge just recently. They are still learning the Black-shouldered Kite Play Book and being fed by the male.
However they have developed all the skills to successfully hunt for mice and spend quite a bit of time over the paddocks, holding a position hovering, learning to parachute down with wings held high, and how to drop the legs as they enter the grasses. Just at this stage they weren’t quite mastering the take-away food skill.
This young one had been out in the paddock polishing up its hovering skills, and little wings get a bit tired and it decided to take a break by landing on the fence-line.
Time to turn to page 122 in the Play Book and learn that you don’t land in a Australian Magpie territory, where they too are schooling up their young in the fine arts of finding their own food and territory defence against all comers.
The little Kite was so intent on finding a fine, safe, secure post to rest on that it didn’t at first note the stealth-hunter rising from the grass in full cry.
In the end it crossed the road and rested on the neutral territory of the gate.
We were at the Western Treatment Plant and the weather had clouded over. Best to head for home was the vote from both EE and Mr An Onymous. As we were at the southern end of the plant we decided (well I had the steering wheel) to take the longer, not so well used, track around the Austin Road extention.
This track circuits the far eastern side of the plant and has a long treeline running next to the fence, and can be on occassions worthwhile. Most times however its just a drive between the treeline and the open paddocks. Which is why many don’t make that trip and the track is mostly used by the farm folk and whatever livestock is in the area.
I missed the Black-shouldered Kite sitting on the old gate rail, but decided to stop just in case it was in the area.
We’d only just got out of said IamGrey and were looking about when an ominous black shape headed toward us across the field, pursued by an equally intent Black-shouldered Kite. Camera up, frames released, and then it was obvious we had found a Black Falcon with a Kite in hot pursuit. This is pretty unusual as normally the Falcon would have no qualms about relieving the little Kite of any prey it might have caught. Perhaps the pair had a nest in one of the nearby trees and they were in no mood for the Falcon to give them grief.
Black Falcons are not resident at the WTP, they tend to come in over the summer and we might only have one or two sightings each season. The Falcon is much faster than the Kite and more like its Peregrine and Hobby cousins than to the Browns.
It swept across the paddock with the Kite stooping on it several times, no contact, but enough to move the bigger bird on. It turned behind the treeline and was gone. The Kite returned to rest on the old gate post.
Our most recent outings have all been in the one location at Point Cook Coastal Park. At least three families of young Black-shoudered Kites have been working in the area. As best we’ve been able to count there have been nine young Kites, with at least two of their supervising male adults, one semi-resident male, who has a second clutch on the go and is busy feeding Madeline, and perhaps two or three late juveniles that have started to lose their apricot colouring and take on the rich red eye colour.
Intruiging to walk down a roadway with up to eight or more of them sitting on fence posts all calling and tail-wagging in territorial poses. While in the air around them several others are applying their skills for a feed.
But with finite amounts of mice, and so many kites a few squabbles were inevitable. And Mike was not happy about having so many extra mouths to feed when he has the new clutch growing.
As I said to someone the other day, it’s the stuff to fill memory cards on. And I’ve wondered how many feeding Kite pictures does a blog need. Still I don’t know. So here are the dramas from a few days.
Enjoy!
This one seemed to me to be an adult the way it was hunting, and I was suprised to see when I looked closely it was a juvenile.
They pull out of the headlong dive just before the ground and the feet are swung in to land on the prey-mouse.
I’ve been near them from time to time and they hit the ground with quite a distinct, “THUD”If you can’t catch a mouse, then it’s fair game to stop the next bird in their hunting efforts, which always results in a few circles of the paddock as they sort out the differences.
Now this I’ve never seen before. This bird is eating the mouse on the wing. It’s a bit to dangerous to land on a post to have a leisurely meal as one or other other the others will make a pass and try to relieve you of your catch. They fly quite high to do this action, and then hover-fall as they reach down and take pieces, until it can be swallowed whole. This is one of the older two or three that have lately come to the paddock. It has easily secured a meal and is keeping it quite hidden from everybody elseOld enough to defend itself, it was lining up for a fence post landingA large tail-flick is a warning to all that is prepared to claim territory. It has also dropped the wings to ‘mantle’ over the mouse.And here the tail is covering any sign of its possession.Meanwhile Mike is running off any birds that try to hunt in his area.I’m not sure where the boundary was, but the young were continually hunted over the far side of the roadway. The young were quite capable of squabbling amonst themselves for the best positions. I came to the conclusion from the way they each returned to a specific area, that the mice were in that location.Another successful strike. And now to find a place to enjoy the meal.Ths is the same bird and its easy to see that it has the mouse very tightly tucked up to keep safe from the others. It spiralled up to gain height to eat it on the wingHere, it is enjoying the fruits of its labour. As it lazily difted down in a slow descent.
No doubt by this week, the fields will be pretty bare as the young will begin to move further down the coast or inland to find their own hunting grounds.
With a welcome change in the weather for a sunny morning without wind, we went to check on the young carpark Kite of Madeline and Mike.
They are now old enough to fend for themselves, so we didn’t expect to see them in the old hometree.
A little searching found them in the air about 700m down the paddock. So we trudged on down. Trudged of course is a euphemism for went with high expectations and we weren’t disappointed.
As we began to count Kites in the air and on the fence posts, it became apparent that there were two families of Kites working in the paddock as we could see at any one time, six young either sitting or flying about. There was also just one adult, and its likely that this one was not Mike and he is now kept busy further afield suppling the incubating Madeline.
The six seemed to get on together pretty well, and it gave them plenty of chances for hunting as well as mock aerial battles. The young fence sitters seemed to do a lot of tail-lifting, which is a sign of territory ownership, so each one was aware of the presence of the others.
Unsure where the other three would have come from as suitable trees are a bit of a rarity in the long paddocks.
They were all happy to work from the fence posts, and allow either close approaches, or fly in close on their own. A main access track and walking trail is about a chain (about 20m) from the fences on both sides and the track are well used by walker and bicycle riders so the young were quite human tolerant.
And in the warm sunshine, with plenty of action, time just drifted by and two hours later we did trudged back to IamGrey for a spot of the Earl’s best.
We had on a chance stopped by to see if infact Madeline the Black-shouldered Kite had any prospects of a full nest. Whatever is going on is worth defending as she cleared out a murder of Ravens, a lone Black-faced Cuckooshrike, the two Falcons, Cassia, of Cinnamon and Alistair, and confronted the home team neighborhood watch Magpies.
The Ravens have a nest about 3 trees down from her nest, and it’s going to be an ongoing battle. In the end, she pursed the Falcons to about a radius of 600-700 metres. It was a very busy morning for a very aggressive and angry bird.
As it Happened.
The Raven was hoping it was going to be safe under the tree to work on the nest.
Maddie had other ideas, and it was time for it to move on.
The alpha female Magpie came, perhaps to negotiate, but that wasn’t going to happen
Look out. Here I come
Wisely the Maggie left the branch.
But returned and tried to look as intimidating as possible.
A more frontal attack was launched
In the end, they both landed and decided on their next tactic.
The victor, after 6 rounds. (at least). Maggie moved on. Madeline was already eyeing off the passing Falcons.
Regular followers will know that not too far from home, in a quiet roadside reserve, we have over the years been following the nesting activities of a pair of Black-shouldered Kites, named, Belle and Bronson.
If the boy scout arithmetic is close to correct, (and a lot of covid-lockdown not withstanding), it’s likely the that pair over about 4 years had as many as 10 successful clutches and two that were abandoned for various reasons.
Each clutch on average was 3 young birds, with two being just 2 young. All seemed to survive to leaving home, so its possible between them they flew at least 28 young birds to add to the population.
There is some anecdotal evidence that Belle had a least two Bronsons. Which would make her quite an old bird in Black-shoulded Kite years.
In September 2022, they again flew in sticks and mated and she settled in to the job of her 11th clutch. But. The weather turned dreadful not long after she had layed the eggs, and we had over a week of incessant rain and extreme high winds. We had watched the branch carrying its precious cargo being tossed about like a leaf.
After about a week, Belle disappeared. The nesting was over. We’ve seen her do this before and usually after bulking up for 2-3 weeks, she’d return. Time, as they say went by, and no sign of return.
Bronson was still home-schooling his previous two young. They were pretty much full grown and self-sufficient, but they stayed around the home tree, and he sat with them for a couple more weeks, eventually they too left and the paddock and small treeline was bare of Kites.
All through October and November, we kept checking, but in the end it was obvious. This party was over.
We did make occassional visits, but all through till March there was no further activity. I had been following a second pair of Kites about a kilometre down the road, so a drop in wasn’t too hard. In early April, we heard familiar sounds of a Kite short squeaking call. All excited, perhaps the pair were back. However we only found one and it certainly wasn’t from the missing pair. A few days later a second one was visible. This one certainly was a much younger bird and we wondered if they were a pair. Hard to tell, initially. They certainly didn’t behave like the originals and they had some unusual habits. Including not using any of the more familiar perches and spending time at the far end of the little plantation. Also it soon became clear that they did not engage in aerial transfer of food. And to be honest, watching them try to transfer on a branch showed how clumsy either, one, or both of them were. Eventually they settled on using the large street lights over the freeway as a level table to pass the mouse across. Strange.
The upside was the work, began, a site was settled on, and settled into. Stick carrying, and mating were the order of the day. Inspite of their clumsy food transfering, the mating seemed to go quite well, thank you.
I’ve delayed writing about it, and showing some pictures as it’s been very much an on-again off-again process. We think of them as ‘new age’ birds that have a new set of rules. 🙂
Meet the new CoupleDiscussions about nesting materialsPlenty of building material going inShe seemed unsure how to take the mouseEventually persistance paid offAnother complex food transferSettling into the nesting areaYet another complicated food transfer. But it is getting smoother.The alternate food transfer location.From a roadway that is near the nest site, its just possible to make out the nest. Here Belle is beginning to beak feed her hatched young.
We started out heading to monitor several Black-shouldered Kites nestings, but as the early morning sunhine beckoned when we made it to the freeway we decided a coffee at Gerry’s at the Highway Lounge and then on the WTP for a looksee for robins.
Coffee despatched, we didn’t have any success with the Robins however.
For those that have visited the WTP we headed on up toward Ryan’s Swamp.
A good move it turned out to be as there were a number of raptors working along the roadway.
Our first sighting for the day, a Black Kite among the old treesA female Nankeen Kestrel was ‘hawking’ up the remains of breakfast. A little furball lump of undigestible rubbish. We spotted this Brown Falcon ‘walking’ along the road, no doubt it had scored a meal, as it flew to the tree and the next 45 minutes or so we stood with it, as it slowly digested the meal. There is something special about being able to observe this bird, unstressed, and watch its various character traits.Handsome in the early morning light with dark storm clouds building behindA number of Black Kites were also in the same area. It looks like full on dogfight, but these big birds seem to love to play about togetherAnother Black from the same area, and it appears to have nesting in mind.Meanwhile the others continued the gamesYet another Falcon swept in to see what was going on.It didn’t take us too long to find a pair of Black-shouldered Kites at work on nesting. Unlike most Black-shouldered these were nesting in the top of a dead tree in the open.
Here the male has just arrived to relieve the female for awhile.Nesting hasn’t blunted her hunting skillsDon’t mess with Mamma. She is unhappy about the Black Kite attention on the treelineMore Kestrel hunting. I missed the catch of this one. A pair of Brown Falcons, they are not ready to mate, but are doing their best to keep the pair-bond alive and bright.
He has just swept in from a few aerial stunts to impress her.
She is crouched ready to accept his advances.
We again spent 15 minutes or more watching their various antics, and after a lot of calls and cackles, they both flew to different perch area to repeat the performanceHey, I think you look pretty special.
Well I can’t speak Brown Falconese, so who knows what he said.
We have been following a pair of Black-shouldered Kites since early January.
It’s been an on and off again project, both for the Kites and for us. Because of the distance, its just that little too far to be regularly checking on them, and in the beginning, they were somewhat half-hearted about making a start.
But by late Feb, it was pretty clear she had taken a nest in a pinetree next to a public carpark. The Point Cook Coastal Park is now surrounded on the landside by housing estates and is a popular walking, bicyling, picnicing location, so the carpark is always extremely busy.
Early morning light, or late afternoon is best suited for the location, and it was not unusual to see a photographer or two standing on the grass against the fence line waiting for the young to show themselves.
I thought it wise to wait until the cycle was nearly over and I had a reasonable show of the activities, rather than just publishing a few isolated moments of the action.
So in the growing tradition of the blog, here are the pics to tell the story.
After a month of sitting on her eggs and another 3-4 weeks of feeding the young, Mum was finally ready to put them on display. At first we thought there might only be two, but eventually a third little head made itself visible. Perhaps one of the eggs was late hatching as it seemed one was always behind the other two in gaining the skillsOnce they were out and about, Mum went off for a rest and Dad took to raising and feeding them. They were very vocal in expressing their needs Not sure which day they flew, but one morning we arrived to find them out and about. Those first few days are a bit awkward in the air.Landing is always a traumatic event for the first few daysRule #5 In the Black-shouldered Kite Manual. Don’t harass Dad to go and catch a mouseTime to meet the friendly neighbourhood watchOne of the last skills to learn is aerial transfer of food. They always seem to be willing to participate in this activity. The one thing I’ve noted is that he already knows whose turn it is to take the mouse and will avoid the attacks of the others to be sure the right one gets the offering.
And like all good Black-shouldered Kite stories, the last we see of the young is them sweeping out over the field, hovering and then diving down to secure their own feed.
We are left to wonder is the pair going to have another clutch soon
I was on my way in that lovely pre-dawn light to check on a pair of Mudlarks and their nest. As R L Stevenson said, and “I found the dew on every buttercup”
On a tree some distance down the road, the familar shapes of Black-shouldered Kites. It was enough for me to try to find a place on the narrow roadway to pull over and take a walk back to see what was happening.
As it turned out. A lot. This is not a pair that I’ve worked with before, and probably won’t see again with any regularity.
The male was in the business of renovating or newly constructing a nest, and to my surprise, chose the tree quite near me for his timber collecting duties. It caused me to spare a thought for the effort he has to put in to select and acquire just the right piece of wood.
I don’t normally see this action close up so it was quite intguiging to watch him at work, first selecting a stick to break off, and failing, and then collecting another.
She on the other hand, sat quietly on the other side of the tree. Dreaming, no doubt of mice, or a wide screen tv.
The nest I discovered is 600-800 metres further down the paddock, and far too far away to monitor.
Dropping in to select a branch.It is always a pleasure to watch the Kites work the air so gently and softly. Each feather working hard to control the approachI have no idea how he knows which is the best branch, or does he just keep going until he can find one to break off.
It seems to be quite a balancing act to hold on, and at the same time tug away at a branch. One he was standing on gave way. But he quickly recoveredA bit like the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing is not getting this branch lose.Time to re-evaluate the optionsQuite amazing to see how well he can move about on the tiniest of branchesThere, that is the right one.And away we go.And there is the nest tree. Way, way, way down there. Two fences a gate and an irrigation channel away.
Quite an enlargement, but you can see his progress.
Just in case anyone thought from my previous post that I’d abandoned BirdsasPoetry.com, rest assured all is well.
On yet another cold, windy morning we had ventured out to see if the young kites were in residence or if they had finally taken the hint and moved on to explore new areas.
We found them down the paddock about a Kilometre from the home tree, and all three actively engaged in the business of food production.
A little further investigation, and it seems like they have continued to use the home tree as a roosting area, for present. It appears that a line (invisible so to speak) has been drawn through the home territory, and they have access to the western side, and can hunt and roost freely. The eastern side, where Belle has a new nest in production, is a no-go zone and should they venture there they are quickly hunted away. So it means that unlike most clutches, they are still operating in the home territory, if somewhat tenuously.
Bronson it seems is not adverse to sneaking over the line, with a treat for them from time to time. But there is no doubt they are now self-sufficient
Here is a selection showing them in action.
It is interesting to see them pull their head up to look around. Perhaps its to check for danger or perhaps to see if there is a better area to work over
I missed this one going down. It must have spotted the mouse and dove headfirst into the grasses, and I just couldn’t keep up with it. In a few seconds it lifted off with its prize
This is another one on full attack.
And here the two of them, with mouse in claw, arrived back on the home tree within seconds of each other.
I’ve been a bit remiss of late keeping the current nesting updated on the blog. I had decided that I’d just wait to make a single story rather than publish in installments.
Belle and Bronson had finished a clutch in early April, and the young were honing the last of their hunting skills, when it became obvious that the pair were planning a second clutch in the same nest. Normally after a clutch, the female takes a well earned break and may not be around for several weeks, and feeds herself, or sometimes moves on to another territory. So it was interesting to see them carrying sticks, Bronson feeding her and mating on a regular basis.
Then. The weather turned. I’m sure she didn’t plan for it, but the weather simply went from bad to dreadful. Rain. Wind. Hail. Gales. Some days all together.
EE and I were talking over the image selection for this set, and noted how few days of bright sunshine there had been and how much of the journey we had missed simply because it was too cold and dreadful to be out in the field.
Yet, to their credit, they persisted. The nest is exposed to the North. So any strong northerly winds, and there were whole days of that, really blasted onto the nesting site. It is a clever nest, among the young leaves and twigs at the end of a branch. It is built over a ‘Y’ at the end of the branch and a short dead stick in the centre of the “Y” takes the load bearing. But on a strong wind, the nest was lifted near vertically and must have been a wild ride for the brooding mother and eventually the hatched young.
Yet. To their credit, they persisted.
There are a few more photos than I’d normally publish and I’ve interspersed them through the text notes.
The first step in the process it seems is for the nest to be refurbished. Some internal material was removed, old feathers, dried leaves and some sticks. Perhaps it was soiled by the young before they could move about. Then a range of new sticks were added to build up the edges of the nest as the young had stood on the edges.
The next step was to top up Belle’s reserves. She will be on the nest and unable to catch for perhaps as long as 45 days. She will let him know when she is hungry.
It’s not often easy to get a glimpse of her on the nest, as she sits well down. This was a little later in the brooding and most likely the young were hatched and she was sitting over them rather than down on the eggs.
Hard to know at first how many are in the nest. For quite awhile we though we only saw two, so one might have been a few days behind the others. But once they get their bearings they are quick to want to see the world around them. It is often interesting to see those rich ginger colours, which at first seem to bright to hide them, but suprisingly (I jest) the grey, white and ginger are a perfect match for the nesting location.
Several days before they fly they move about the branches and twigs, a combination of clambering and jumping. This enterprising one had managed to get right out in the open to plead with Bronson for an extra helping.
Then the big day comes and they step out of the tree and into the air. Getting out is not so much a problem for them as working out how to slow down and stop well enough to land. The first few attempts usually are just dumping into the surrounding leaves—just as well they are soft. But in a day or so they can judge the speed and angle and make it on to the branches, albiet in a haphazard fashion
But the skills develop quickly, as you would expect, and within a few days they are highly manouverable little aeronauts. Wing strengh develops and long forays down the paddocks and out of sight become the norm.
Then begins the process of teaching them to take prey from the male. They take to this execise with great enthusiasm, very little skill, clumsiness and what can best be described as un-coordination. A hard time for the male as he gets buffetted about by the young who judge the speed, height and angle badly and barrell into him with no hope of making split second corrections. He seems to take all this in a stoic manner and I’ve seen him sometimes raise a little higher to match the upward speed, or drop lower with a long outstretched leg to place the mouse in the waiting claws. Other times he seems to be able to hold out the mouse and then slip away sideways to avoid a headon collision.
Eventually all the training comes to fruition and they become highly skilled at judging the parameters and can do it with a minimum of effort and few missed opportunities.
And now they are just bragging. The once unskilled can now make a bold one legged move.
This happened a long way out, and I’ve only got small shots of the entire sequence, but the young one secured the mouse, and somewhere between grasping it, and wanting to eat it in the air, of course it dropped the mouse. Bronson was on to it but as my Flickr site shows, a mouse free-falling is faster than a Kite. They are built for hovereing and do not have the speed of say, a Peregrine or Hobby, and the mouse tumbled to the ground. He was however right behind it, and I think this one was dead, as he quickly retrieved it, took it to a branch and the young one safely collected it.
Soon the colours will fade and they will be ready to face the world on their own. As Eleanor pointed out the orange colouring come from a chemical in the feathers, Porphyrin.
It seems the baby colours out of the nest don’t moult out, the rich copper tones fade out gradually over a few week. The brownish colour on young BSKs comes from Porphyrin, which fades in sunlight.
Eleanor says, “Porphyrin, which has been studied less than other pigments, as it doesn’t occur in large numbers of birds. It is found for example in the reddish-brown feathers of a juvenile Black-shouldered Kite. This fades after a few weeks, without the birds replacing the feathers, as it degrades in sunlight. It is also found in the brown and reddish spots on birds’ eggs.”
Porphyrin also emitts or fluoresces under UV light so the colouring would show up quite brightly for the birds, which may be an indication of individuals, or breeding potential. All just too fascinating.
And so through the sleet, the hail, the rain, the high winds and freezing cold they have matured enough to move on from the nest site. Here Bronson is sitting with them, a symbolic sort of image as they are now banned from the nesting area, as Belle is already preparing a new nest and by the time I publish this, no doubt she will have another clutch on the go.
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 