Day: March 28, 2020

Hope everyone is well, and for those in lockdown where-ever that may be, that you are keeping sane.

I’ve completely given up watching tv “Fear News”, when it was ‘Fake News”, it was a bit laughable.  Now it seems that the media want to make everyone into a skulking paranoid.
I’ve locked in the Gov and State web sites. I check them and avoid the overworn adjectives that seem to have cluttered modern reporting (having trouble labelling it journalism)

Years ago I was called “anti-social”, for not being a social butterfly, but it seems that the introverts may finally have their moment.

Mr An Onymous always dreams of being a Lighthouse Keeper.  Isolation plus.

Melbourne Water have closed all Bird Watching Areas in the Western Treatment Plant. Sadly, I think I felt more secure in the acres at the middle of a sewage treatment works, than negotiating the byways of the local shopping center. 🙂

EE has been following a pair of Black-shouldered Kites since August last year. After a bit of stopping and starting, they eventually nested and managed to fly two healthy young.  Then strangely within a few weeks, the male had hunted the young ones off, and refused to feed them, they were soon off on their own.
EE thought that the pair would move on so we only dropped by once a week or so.  Then to our surprise, he started to provide mice, and carry sticks, and conduct other more serious relationship activities, (they bonked).

It took a few trips, but eventually EE was able to locate the possible nest site. High in the very tops of a huge pine.  Not easy to see, nor to photograph. And by mid-January, it was obvious she was in a nesting cycle.
Then, the weather turned feral.  We had 10 days of miserable cold, extremely wet and very gusty weather.  No doubt the the nest and its precious cargo would not survive.
After the deluge had passed we called by and again to our surprise, she was still at work on the nest, and was conducting running repairs with a new layer of twigs and sticks.
It says much about the tenacity, and dedication and perseverance that the female had to suffer the rain and wind, and still not abandon the project.

Because of the position and height of the nest, its been next to impossible to follow the growth of the young.
We went out last Friday, figuring it might just about be the final trip we can get in before more travel restrictions catch up with us.

We’d had in previous trips seen glimpses of movement and the occasional little brown head peeking, but had not had any chance to work out their progress.

So here we are.  Climbing out on the edge of the nest, surveying the area around.   Combine that with a range of wingflap activities and no doubt the next few days will bring both young out in the open. Not sure if we’ll be able to travel out to see them, but no doubt Mum and Dad will bring them on without our help.

So while one part of the world leaves us in despair, another part is doing its best to keep a species going.

Remain.