Noisy neighbours.....

As I walked up to do the morning feed yesterday I could hear a commotion, lots of high pitched raptor alarm calls, concerned that the chicks may be fighting or something was wrong I ran up and checked on our two biggest birds in cage 1. These are two large females, now over 10 weeks old and weighing over 5kg, they were stood on their perch, hackles up and heads bobbing as they screamed at a buzzard that had landed outside their cage, obviously interested in its new neighbours, despite being twice the size, the young eagles were obviously quite scared of the wild visitor! There are rough-legged rather than common buzzards in Norway, so this may well have been the chicks' first encounter with this species.

Its two and a half weeks since the chicks have arrived and after a couple of birds getting chest infections in the first week which we swiftly treated with antibiotics they have now all settled down to eating and growing! The three smallest chicks which had to have their food chopped up into bite-sized chunks in the first week have now lost all traces of fluff on their heads (see photo in last blog post of the 'three amigos') and are standing up much more regally and now deftly using their talons to manipulate their food which now goes in whole. Every year we see a range of behaviour from the young birds and this year we have one male who likes to jump on his food with both feet as soon as its put in and another who likes to turn his head upside down to check out each new bit of prey from a fresh angle! A couple of the larger birds have started stretching and flapping their wings, expressing a natural urge to exercise which we also observe in chicks in nests in the wild.

Birds X and H, a male and female sho spent three months at Loch Leven, have met up again near Crieff, spending last night roosting in a wood that is a regular kite roost and Z is back around Loch Davan. Whilst other 2008 and 2009 birds are currently moving around the Angus glens.