I am afraid, dear reader, that I have neglected you and now we have so much to discuss!
Some of the parrots simply didn’t bother to breed this year and others were a trifle devious and moved from the cavity we knew to another one around the corner. That in itself might not seem a bother but it might take a couple of mornings doing observations for us to work it out. Once we did work out who was where and who wasn’t, we were then busy trying to get around all these nests to find out which egg was laid when, or when not.
A typical nest inspection morning would go like this. Wake up at 0430 and have a cup of tea (the parrot team are very British in this respect and have in fact imported over 1000 “proper” tea bags from the UK to last the season, but we’ve nearly run out - eeek!), eat breakfast and grunt at one another. Drive to a nest site (15 to 30 minutes). In the dark we’ll walk through the bush, avoiding cacti by head torch, maybe climbing up a small cliff, cross perilous rocky ground and arrive at a suitably uncomfortable place to sit and wait for the parrots.
Sometime between 0550 and 0830 the male will arrive in the area and call to the female. She will have slept in the cavity and will not left without hearing his lovely voice. The moment she leaves the nest we spring into action, set up the rope and abseil to the nest. When we are trying to get lay dates all that is required for a nest inspection is to take a picture of inside the nest. Some of the cliff nests are pretty deep though and that might mean having your whole arm up to your arm pit in the nest.
It might take several attempts to get the picture but once you see what’s there, and acknowledge Mr and Mrs Parrot (who are telling you what they think of you) you get out of the way. That involves climbing back up the rope as quick as you can. Next pack up the climbing gear and run back over the jagged rocks out of the way so that Mrs Parrot can get back to business. Phew!
So the picture may reveal new eggs or not, both of which helps us work out when eggs are laid. It’s not quite as simple as a breeder opening a nest box inspection door but the principle is the same.
Unfortunately many pictures revealed what we like least, mortality. The first eggs of several nests were cracked. We can’t be sure exactly what caused the damage but it could be rats, cats, competing parrots or even the parents themselves being clumbsy. This year we, or rather, the parrots, had several damaged first eggs. Many of the pairs continued in their efforts and went on to complete a clutch of eggs. Some, however, simply gave up at the first hurdle and didn’t bother to breed at all this year. If that’s all it takes to put them off it’s pretty scary. We’ll need to fix that in the future.
Well this “little” entry has required more words than I anticipated so I shall not write about the wonderful tiny pink bundles of joy now! I’ll save that and some cute pictures for my next post.
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