Bird Articles and Advice / June 2012 Cage & Aviary Bulletin

20/06/2012 09:38:04

June 2012 Cage & Aviary Bulletin

I am a bit late with this month’s bulletin as I have been away looking at birds in much more exotic places. Back at home, I understand, the weather did not change since I left the UK and rain has featured in the forecasts almost every day. Nevertheless, I have continued watching the nest of Stock Doves on CCTV that I wrote about last month. Before I left home I installed a Digital Video Recorder that was connected to the Internet so that I could see the progress of the young birds from the other side of the world but the quality of Broadband was very disappointing in more remote places.

The good news is that the young birds fledged and left the nest and the parents quickly got back together and have since produced another chick. Three eggs were laid in the second clutch but only one hatched. It is likely that the eggs were chilled when left for nearly three hours on one wet and windy day at the beginning of the month. As the lone chick is receiving concentrated attention from both parents it is growing at a very noticeable rate and could leave the nest before the end of the month.

As I sit working away at my computer I have a CCTV monitor close by streaming pictures so I am able to see the progress and behaviour of ‘my’ nesting birds as it happens. For most of the time very little seems to take place with a parent brooding its young, getting up occasionally to satisfy the demands of its chick for more food and then the parents changing over their duty to allow them to go away and feed also. I am however a little surprised at the visits they get from intruders and the defence they put up when they are threatened. Whenever there is significant movement seen on the monitor, I am distracted from my work to see what new bird behaviour may be revealed and it is not always as expected. Almost daily I learn something new and am now appreciating more of the hazards birds endure when they are breeding. Breeding birds in cages or the aviary should be much less stressful for the parents as they are usually protected from predation by all those animals trying to survive themselves.

In the wild a bird’s nest is open to any other animal that can gain access to it and removal of the eggs or young probably happens far more than we appreciate. During the last week I have witnessed visits to my Stock Dove nest by Jackdaws, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a very determined Grey Squirrel and at each event the Stock Doves have vigorously and successfully defended their nesting territory. The Grey Squirrel has been back a few times now and on one occasion managed to catch the parents wing in its mouth but eventually was driven away. It is at times like this that I feel I should be doing more to protect the birds I have attracted to my garden but the very fact that they are there is the reason predators arrive also. It can be a cruel world.

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