Nesting Logged Birds

Left: Aldina (3Y+) is nesting on a ruin amid cork oak grassland. She is the left hand bird on the nest marked by the arrow.
Right: The logger has settled below Aldina's feathers, only her blue colour rings (just visible in this shot) ID her.

Studying the GPS positions of the logged birds has allowed me to work out where they might be nesting –especially now the birds are spending more time at their nests because the breeding season is getting underway.

Brutus (3W+) head down tidying his nest in a Eucalyptus tree

Part of my fieldwork involves visiting the nests to gather data. It is great to see the logged birds are all doing well and are apparently completely unaffected by their logger back-packs. These quickly sunk down into the feathers, which (most importantly) minimizes drag in flight but also keeps the loggers dry and safe from exposure to the elements. The loggers are not even visible as a hump on the storks backs! Only the blue colour rings on each leg indicate to me which storks are my logged birds.

Excuse the quality of my logged bird photos. They were taken through my telescope and Nuno was photographed in heavy rain. Most of the logged birds are in nests too high to view in to, with the exception of Aldina. She is in a colony of 10 nests had 3 eggs when I visited - and may even lay more eggs. More updates on her progress and hopefully photos of her chicks as the season progresses.

Nuno (37+) hunkered down in heavy rain on his nest 

in a Eucalyptus tree. Although other members of his 

colony have started laying it is likely that Nuno does 

not yet to have eggs because he was not incubating 

them, despite the rain.