Week 38 – Latest goings on

Just a quick update on the weeks events this week as by the time you read this I will have become a dad! The next couple of blogs will be pre-written and won’t have any weekly news/wildlife sightings but I’ll update that all once I am back.
 
This week we have put one of the male European Eagle Owls back out on display. The bird was moved off-show a few weeks ago when it was found on the ground and not showing any signs of aggression. We have had the bird inside and have been medicating and monitoring food in take. The birds appetite has returned and he seems much brighter so he went back out on Wednesday to rejoin the other male. There has been some squabbling, inevitable when you have 2 males of a territorial species together but things seem to have calmed down.
 
We have also moved some Java Sparrows this week. The original group of 20 birds from a couple of years ago have been very successful with regular breeding over the past few years. The Javas are now so successful that they tend to dominate the enclosure and may be the reason why the Splendid Parakeets have not been very successful this year and why the Pekin Robins have failed to lay at all. Half of the group has now been moved to the Desert House where they have already produced eggs.
 
The Crowned Plovers have produced eggs for the first time this year. We have removed the eggs as we have no way of knowing who has paired with who. This year we didn’t want to breed this species so have held them in a large group of 3 males, 3 females. Of this group only one male is unrelated so next year he will be housed with one female in their own enclosure.
We have had a couple more Roul Roul Partridge eggs but these have been broken. There are still eggs in the incubator due to hatch shortly. We also have the Northern Helmeted Curassow egg in the incubator, due towards the end of the month.
 
Wildlife wise we are still seeing the Kingfisher only a daily basis, as well as Grey Wagtail. 2 Buzzards were seen together on Wednesday and Swallow are still present. In the Nature Area we still have lots of small birds about, with young Bullfinch, Chaffinch and Great Tit seen.
The butterflies have more or less disappeared now as the temperature has dropped and wasp numbers are also in decline. Helen reported seeing a Shrew this week.