I noticed this
morning that the buds on the Horse Chestnut tree outside my bedroom
window have begun to open, a definite sign that Spring is here. Soon
the leaves will open and hide the activities of the Rooks which live
in the upper branches. Some are dismantling last year's nests and
starting anew while others are just patching up their old nests. A
disturbing development this year is the number of fights that have
occurred as intruders try to take over one of the existing nests. The
birds grapple together as they fall, fluttering, down through the
branches until they hit the ground, where they end up with one bird
pinned down on its back while the other tries to peck it to death.
This is a common behavior in Blackbirds which will reject all human
attempts to separate them, and usually results in the death of one
bird. Rooks however must have some sort of ‘submit’ signal which
leads to the upper rook returning to the nest and the other flying
off.
My Cuckoo, Selborne,
is behaving rather oddly. The latest satelite information from its
tag reads:-
“Selborne
doubles back - 11 Mar 2019
Selborne has left
Guinea and headed back east and into Ivory Coast. He seems to be
homing in on the rains that are currently prevalent in the southern
half of Ivory Coast. This wasn’t a short journey, he is 376km (234
miles) from his location in Guinea. This shows the importance of
homing in on the rains and that our Cuckoos have the ability to do
this.”
In previous years he
has set off on his 3,000 mile journey back home around the 24th
of March, so plenty of time yet to stock up for the flight.
No comments:
Post a Comment