helpers

Originally posted over at Seetrail; backdated here.

In an earlier post, I think I confessed that we try to use band numbers and haven't given nicknames (beyond K8, conveniently "Kate"). Alas, the first day out of the box for young 93, he ended up with "peachy britches" due to his extensive peachy facial markings - but they all have peachy britches if you get technical.



In the video above, taken on Aug 2, you see H7, the young female, just to left of center. There's some down on her head in the video, but there's not much left these days. To her right, perched up high is 93, our peachy friend. The other 3 older birds were diving at them, circling them and perching with them... before going to the towers to eat. That's pretty helpful, if you ask me. The cooperative behaviors have been really fascinating to watch.

We think that hanging out with the older birds might have given us a scare yesterday. Thankfully 93 has been hanging out with the older group and avoiding owls; yesterday he missed both feedings though. Today we were bracing for official disappointment. Having only been out of the box for 8 days, skipping a full day wasn't exactly a good sign. This morning he showed up and ate until about 11:30 (generally everyone is done by 10:30!)

We're happy he finally resurfaced... now if only 83 (who has missed 5 meals) would show up again...