As I sit at my desk penning this submit concerning the newest try at breeding for one in every of our pairs of Pied Oystercatchers I realise I’ve written 677 posts now for this website. This pair of Pied Oystercatchers are utilizing the same nest site as final 12 months, which does make it simple to seek out. The nest website has moved sometimes since I first noticed one on Cable Seashore in 2000. If there are adjustments to the place individuals stroll by the dune methods then they are going to regulate their nest website accordingly. This explicit nest website is the furthest again from the seashore throughout this time interval and the individually marked male Pied Oystercatcher “A1” has been trying to breed right here since 2008.
This rocky space excessive up past the seashore sand presents nice camouflage and safety. The Pied Oystercatchers can see far and large and monitor the world for threats from floor stage and above. The picture beneath reveals the precise nest with the eggs in, however that might not be initially clear to you, so I’ve underlined them in a replica of the picture beneath.
Eggs in a Pied Oystercatcher nest
I all the time stroll by briefly to substantiate the variety of eggs, however it is vitally not often greater than two eggs in Broome. The color variation may be fairly excessive and there’s all the time sufficient variation within the eggshell sample to establish the person eggs. I’ve additionally famous the eggs principally seem to level in several instructions, however they’re additionally consistently being rotated by the mother and father. Each mother and father are chargeable for the incubation, which takes twenty eight days.
Pied Oystercatcher eggs
It’s Winter right here in Northern Australia which suggests loads of cloud-free blue sky and there are positively worst locations to be sitting for twenty eight days watching the world go by!
View from the nest website in direction of the Indian Ocean at Cable Seashore
View from the seashore trying again on the distant nest website
Very sometimes I observe “damaged wing” show from this pair of Pied Oystercatchers. I suppose they know me! They may do it for different threats as a distraction to guard their eggs or chicks. A menace from above when they’re nest-sitting tends to contain the grownup going as flat as attainable.
Pied Oystercatcher “damaged wing” show
It’s all the time apparent when the eggs are on account of hatch, as a result of each mother and father will stay on the nest moderately than one being absent feeding. They are often two or three kilometres away, but when the nest-sitter calls the opposite one will quickly arrive to assist shield. I believe they fairly presumably have significantly better listening to than you’d give them credit score for. The male Pied Oystercatcher is standing guard while she does the sitting on this picture beneath.
Nest website
On my subsequent go to I used to be not shocked to see them nonetheless on the nest website, nevertheless it was not till I checked out my photographs at house that I realised that I had a photograph of a Pied Oystercatcher chick standing within the nest. As soon as once more I’ve positioned a replica of the picture beneath exhibiting the place the closely camouflaged chick is.
Pied Oystercatcher grownup and chick
I had walked extensively across the space and brought a number of photographs and observed that there was now one egg and one chick and naturally they have been nonetheless properly camouflaged.
Pied Oystercatcher chick and egg on the nest website
Over the next days I’d return to the seashore and stroll alongside the excessive tide mark. I might observe the place the household had come all the way down to the ocean at night time on the large tides. The footprints within the smooth sand confirmed their actions as they moved nearer to the excessive tide space. I might see their most popular vegetation for hiding the chicks.
Pied Oystercatcher household footprints within the smooth sand and all the way down to the excessive tide mark
The 2 Pied Oystercatcher chicks have been obedient and hid once they have been informed by their mother and father. They might generally select totally different hiding spots and stay utterly immobile till the mother and father made a distinct name and so they knew that they may then come out. As an observer the small footprints that they made allowed me to shortly observe the hiding spot and transfer off.
Pied Oystercatcher chick hiding in vegetation
Pied Oystercatcher chick hiding beside a rock
Generally the 2 Pied Oystercatcher chicks would go to the identical vegetation in the event that they have been shut collectively. Usually they’d be with one grownup every, however they’d began to maneuver North over a number of days and strolling collectively the chicks might cover collectively. As soon as once more their footprints within the smooth sand was a giveaway! You’ll be aware that the footprints are fairly massive for a small fowl, however they seem to hatch out prepared for strolling.
Following the footprints brings you to the 2 Pied Oystercatcher chicks
The mother and father have been shifting North by the busiest part of Cable Seashore, however attempting to maintain the chicks secure within the dunes.
Pied Oystercatcher mother and father
I want I might have satisfied the Pied Oystercatchers to not preserve going North and attempt to get by the four-wheel drives, individuals and canine. I perceive they knew the meals was higher to the North and all of us take dangers, however……
Anyway, inside days there they have been. Alone. Nothing to do for a number of days aside from stand round on a rock collectively and ponder one other try at breeding. That is no totally different to another 12 months you probably have adopted my weekly posts over all of those years. Usually inside ten days there might be two extra eggs, one other twenty eight days of sitting round watching the tide go out and in after which the exhausting work of defending weak chicks. 2014 was our most profitable Pied Oystercatcher season with three chicks from one clutch surviving to fledge. One massive Pied Oystercatcher family!
Considering one other try at breeding in 2023
So, it’s at this level that I hope over the previous 13 years of weekly posts from principally Australia, but in addition different locations that now we have visited across the World, that you’ll have been impressed to journey and luxuriate in your native pure environment.
In January this year I did a post to allow you to seek out a few of the posts that I’ve written extra simply if you happen to have been questioning the place you would possibly wish to go birding in Australia. I hope a few of you’ll have explored a few of these places.
Different posts since then have been filed underneath “birding” and have concerned principally round Broome with a number of current visits to locations round Melbourne.
My 677 posts are underneath Clare M and I’ll apologise now if a few of the photographs have been misplaced “in area” over the previous 13 years! It may be too moist someday to exit and you may learn my posts. You’ll must ask your self why you didn’t get to Australia but!
Anyway, thanks everybody for studying and carry on having fun with birding wherever you’re within the World. Possibly someday our paths will cross……
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