The Tawny Frogmouths I monitor from my current position appear to have hatched today. Mt attention was initially grabbed by the male being extremely restless on the nest: changing position, stretching
wings and much preening. Then on one of the position shifts I noticed a flah of pure white in the nest, which appeared to be separate from the brooding bird (ie a chick).
This is 2 days shorter incubation (25 days since the male assumed the position) than I have previously recorded. It is also a good bit shorter than the averrage period cited in HANZAB. Interestingly
the nest building period was 3 days longer than usual so if they had laid an egg but not started brooding for a couple of days everything would be back to average. However, even though my weather records show the period 3 - 4 September as relatively warm
it would be very unusual for the birds to leave the eggs unattended for 2 days.
Aren't birds interesting.
Yesterday while out at Mulligans Flat we found a nest with 4 eggs.
A pair of Masked Lapwings were in the vicinity but didn't go completely postal for the brief period we were near the nest. However I have been advised that
the species' famed blood lust develops as the birds age so this may have been a young pair. A question that arises is whether it is posible to have a 'nest with eggs' report with a zero birds count. (Of course in this case the birds were present, but a less
bolshy species may not have been seen.)
