Springing into Summer

 
Sorry about the dearth of posts in the past 10 days--the internet was down and I was free from checking email and checking up on the world. During this time I got a cold and was out of the field for three days. Exciting, exciting, I know, but I got to read a lot. Novels! I haven't been able to do that for a while, and now I've read four.

The Lee (as in General) female incubating eggs on her nest.

A quick update on Lagunitas - their 2nd nest has failed and they are struggling to hold on to their territory. We've seen them roaming into other pairs' territory and it is not boding well for their situation. It's getting late to nest again. Most birds stop re-nesting in mid-May, so if they don't build soon and their nest isn't successful, it could be a fledgeless year for the Lagunitas pair. 

Michelle Obama peeking out from behind a branch.

We have a few nests beginning to fledge these days. Fledging is when the young finally hop ship and learn to fly. Their feathers are not entirely grown in and their tail is about an inch long, so they are pretty defenseless against predators and they depend on their parents to feed them for weeks. The Oprah and Steadman nest fledged in Portezuela. To my happy surprise, Negra Modelo also fledged! Four days ago they were 18 days old, a very young age to hop the nest, so they must have been force-fledged by a predator. At least two of them are still alive though, because I saw La Negra and GUY/AP feeding in two separate spots yesterday. McCain, Kennedy, and Rasputin have all fledged in the Field Station plot, and possibly Nader as well. Once they leave the nest it is hard to tell if they got eaten or are still making it, unless you see the parents feeding, but so far so good on these nests.

Island Fox angry at me for disrupting its harassment of the Kennedy fledglings.

The days are getting hotter and yellower as the spring progresses. The grasses are drying out and bouncing golden light into my peripheral vision, making it necessary to squint all day. Thankfully we have Cascada, a swimming hole West of the Cabins with a waterfall and a deep cold pool with smooth walls carved by years of swirling stream water. It is fun to scale the walls above the pool with no fear of falling because you will only be rewarded with the refreshing safety net below. There is a Black Phoebe nest above the pool, which as of two days ago has two extremely large and almost fully-grown babies still jammed in the nest. If they fledge too early they will most certainly drown. I’m amazed that they have the instinct to stay in the nest much longer than other birds of their species—that they somehow know that leaving before they are ready to make the flight across the blue-green glittering ground is dangerous. Most birds leave the nest well before their tail is grown in, and they fall and flit about to learn how to fly. These Phoebes’ tails are full length and the two nestlings hardly fit in the nest at all, yet they stay. Birds are amazing.