You don't want to find a nest by spotting a pile of the owners' feathers on the ground beneath it - but I got the tree correct and they successfully defended the nest because there are one or more chicks in there! And neither of them are obviously injured. Can you see signs of a fight on her when she comes for a bale?
Those feathers can't be from the chicks. The chicks could only be a couple of days old and those feathers were from an adult bird. And I'm confident they're magpie feathers. Therefore him or her. She'd been spending more time on the nest before the chicks hatched so statistically it's more likely she was around whenever whatever happened happened. [That was a really fun sentence to write.]
When she turned up for a bale around 1:20 I see a black spot on the white feathers on her...hindquarters? Rear section. Butt. While it might not be from an attack, it wasn't there when she last came for a bale I think - comparing here with the last bale she attended. So is she missing feathers there? Or anywhere? It's hard for me to tell.
This was a terrible way to find the nest. It's good to know they both look alright and there are chicks in there. It's a worry that something knows where the nest is and might try again. I don't know if it was a bird trying to eat a chick (and it may have succeeded) or attacking the parents.
Killing and dropping roaches usually means they're going to take them away with them. She started by killing and dropping a roach and then decided to eat. I think she only took one roach back to the nest in the end - not a great score for the chicks but she got a feed so it's all good.
During her bale there was a pair of large raptors above the treeline. I don't think she noticed them. And I don't know my hawks from my kites, eagles or harriers. I either call everything a hawk or a raptor unless it's a Wedgie. I can pick those and while this pair of raptors was big, they weren't THAT big. Wrong shape too.
Cloudy day but no rain in case you were wondering. It's been fairly cloudy lately but it mist be the wrong kind of cloud.
Well...good news and bad news there. More good than bad hopefully. Obviously she didn't some back for seconds.
I'll keep you posted. Cheers.
If you'd like to support the channel you can buy me a bale:
buymeacoffee.com/mybackyardyt