Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Summary Update

Hi Everyone

Out of the 5 eggs produced: four hatched, one did not. The last to hatch died at about 3 weeks old. Both the unhatched egg and the dead chick were eaten by eagles. The remaining 3 chicks jumped from the nest during the eagle encounter. One fell to the ground right away, was retrieved, treated by the wildlife shelter and the vet (it's leg was infected and needed to be drained), and was flown (courtesy of Hawk Air) to a larger facility on Salt Spring Island for rehab. That chick is doing well. The second chick stayed on the tree for a day or so and finally fell. This little one was not so lucky and did not make it. The third and last chick (the oldest chick) held on for a full 3 days before it finally fell. It was taken to the wildlife shelter. It is doing well also.

thanks
Pouyan
Posted by at 5:21 PM

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for all of your work (the whole crew) and for letting us peek in at a bit of life in the high trees.

    Could you tell us something of what is now on-line with the web-cam.

    Thanks
    Peter

    ReplyDelete

  2. The camera has been tilted up to a second nest. The nest is obstructed by the tree but the herons are often quite visible. This nest was occupied a week or so earlier than the nest we were filming. The chicks in this nest appear to be older than the chicks we were observing. Could this be why the eagles did not confront this nest?

    Another question on my mind is why did the eagles attack only minutes after the adult heron returned, after being away for several days. It could have attacked earlier and avoided any adult protection...

    Another observation is that this second nest seems to have 2 adult herons present regularly. The first nest rarely had 2 herons present. Could one of the parents have been killed leaving the other unable to feed itself and the chicks?
    Any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete

  3. Perhaps only one at a time returned to the nest...I emailed a current photo of the blue heron that was recovered last to the A.C.E. email. He is doing very well, being fed a diet of fresh salmon, and is being moved today to an indoor/outdoor pen now that he's dong well. Perhaps someone can post the photo on the site so all can get a good look at him. There are ponds on the grounds so he can learn to fish on his own and be released into the wild. Nancy and Gunther are doing an amazing job...please help them by making a donation.

    Holly

    ReplyDelete

  4. Thanks to everyone at NWCC and beyond who have created this wonderful adventure. It has reconfirmed much of what I felt about human nature - we all just want and need to help when presented with a situation such as we have witnessed here.

    ReplyDelete

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