Saturday, July 02, 2011

Marsh Harrier fights and juveniles
















luck has been with me for part of the week and brood size from 3 nests was easy but another 6 checked have been less co-operative -- this location has two pairs breeding within 60m of each other and there is a lot of aggression; the dominant female is particularly viscious and attacked two flying juveniles this morning leaving one with a trailing leg -- she also stops the second female from feeding her brood by attacking her every time she approaches the reedbed -- the second female spent almost 2 hours circling away from the nest this morning before making a dash in with food but the dominant female hit her and they talon locked over the reedbed with the prey item being dropped -- several more fights and the second female left again but when her mate came in with prey she took it in a pass and as the male held off the aggressive female she made another attempt to get to the nest but was again unsuccessful -- thus the brood never received any food in 4 hours - the same thing happened last year and I assumed the second nest would fail but two young fledged m=amazingly -- heat haze was a real problem this morning -- moral must get up earlier! ie before 6am

1 comment:

Craig A. Mullenbach said...

Amazing shots. Great action and interesting story. Thanks.