Re: Forde Creek Chicks

[Julie Clark <>]

Thanks John.

 

I feel more than a little embarrassed by your high praise!

It is nice to know that people other than me are also interested in these fascinating, smart and elusive ​birds.

Cheers

Julie

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 3:25 PM, John Harris <> wrote:

Hi all interested in the Buff-banded rail chicks at Forde.

We all owe the very persistent Julie Clarke a great debt. In monitoring the development of the chicks and managing some clear photographs, Julie has shared her own learning curve with us and may even have advanced the cause of science, given that precise information on the development of BB Rail chicks is hard to find.

Her data merits a bit of analysis.

There were TWO BB Rail broods. 

Julie and Alison Turner saw very young chicks on 21st December. 

I saw black downy chicks on 1 January without any juvenile feathers visible.

In private communication with Julie, I was inclined to think at first that the chicks I saw could still have hatched around  21 December. But given Julie’s clear photographic record I now believe I was wrong, underestimating the the speed at which  feathers develop and that by 1 January the chicks hatched by 21 December would have shown some developing feathers wheras the ones I saw did not.  None of us have seen the chicks of 21 December again.

So the chicks I saw on 1 January were newly hatched. For the purposes of this schema, I will regard them as having hatched that day with the proviso that they could have hatched on 31 December or even 30 December but were definitely no older than that.

Day 1 : 1 Jan, Chicks newly hatched, black down (Seen by John Harris and Len Clarke)

Day 3 :  3 Jan, Chicks 3 days old, black down (Photographed by Julie)

Day 4 : 4 Jan, Chicks 4 days old, black down (Photographed by Julie)

Day 8 : 8 Jan, Chicks 8 days old, feathers appearing (Photographed by Julie)

  (For the next week or more, torrential rain and high water levels made it impossible to locate birds. We feared for them in flooded creek but when everything subsided they were visible again. Julie visited many times)

Day 18 : 18 Jan, Chicks 18 days old, feathers obvious, down virtually gone.  (Photographed by Julie) 

Day 19 : 19 Jan, Chicks 19 days old, fully feathered, like miniature adult without bright bands. (Seen by John Harris)

In summary, chicks hatch covered in black down. After 7 – 9 days, feathers start to be visible. By about 18 days, fully feathered in juvenile plumage.

Congratulations again Julie. I think this deserves a piece by Julie in the Canberra Bird Notes.

Cheers John

 

 

From: Julie Clark <>
Date: Sunday, 18 January 2015 10:07 pm
To: chatline <>, John Harris <m("biblesociety.org.au","john.harris");" target="_blank">>, Bill & Raelene <>, Wallaces <m("bigpond.net.au","skcbf");" target="_blank">>, Alison Turner <m("gmail.com","ms.alison.turner");" target="_blank">>
Subject: Forde Creek Chicks

Hi All,

The crakes and rails have continued to breed at Forde.

The original pair of Spotted Crakes have produced another chick.... now around 12 days old.

There has also been a second Buff-banded Rail brood, originally four chicks, but now I think only three remaining.

This is definitely not the brood Alison and I saw on December 21. I haven't sighted those chicks again.

The new chicks were sighted twice on January 1, with both people seeing only three chicks. I managed photos on Jan 3 & 4 and there were definitely 4 chicks. Another COG member also saw them on Jan 6 ... 4 chicks.

Recent sightings have been a real challenge! For the past week I had only caught  a couple of brief glimpses of an adult and perhaps one chick in long grass. I haven't seen both adults together at all.

Today I  clearly saw one adult and 3 chicks ... now 18 days old and looking like miniatures of the adult.

Photos of both the crake and rails are attached. Most of them have been taken from quite a distance, so as not to disturb them, so the quality is pretty ordinary.

The Spotted Crakes & chick are pretty easy to view ...... standing on the footbridge doesn't seem to disturb them, although they do seem a bit more protective with this single chick.

The rails are much more secretive most of the time.

I've indicated on the photos the progression of days from first sighting.

Cheers

Julie

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 Buff-banded Rail Chicks

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 Spotted Crake Chick - Forde Creek

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Julie Clark

 

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Julie Clark