On the dog walk yesterday, there was suddenly a flurry of interest by the dogs, but no grabbing, chewing, or rolling. Just a fresh, disemboweled chicken carcass in the middle of nowhere. Syd thought I should show its location with a map photo, but no, trust me. Middle. Of. Nowhere.
Best guess is that it became a raptor feast.
The other day I saw a hornero nest, broken, on the railing of a walkway through the dunes to the beach. You can see pieces on the ground. Probably broken by a human being of the juvenile variety, it begs a question: how could the hornero birds who built it think this was a good location?
Today I saw this: two hornero nests, side by side. Years ago I was told that horneros used to build their nests with the opening facing east for the morning sun, but with the increase in electromagnetic pollution, they had lost that sense of direction. I don’t know if it’s true, but the opening of the upper nest is pointing north.
I heard a repeated chirping in the front yard, and saw it was an Hornero and chick, then realized they were in the back yard, and quickly closed the sliding glass door before the dogs figured it out.
I guess I’ve never thought about how big gulls are. My hand from pinkie to thumb tip is around 23 cm / 9 inches. Yikes!
An interesting (empty) egg found on the dog walk. Who knows what kind of bird. Would be interesting, though.
I am unable to identify this bird. It landed on a branch maybe eight meters up, and stayed there as I approached. I was sure it would fly away, but it never did, and paid apparently no attention to the biped and several quadrupeds beneath.
Update: Carancho (Caracara plancus), a falcon. Thanks Syd!
Walking the dog in town, I liked the way the sky seemed to be like energy extending from the tree. The pigeon was a happy accident.
More falcon. When I said my wife wanted to know su edad, she said 26. Well, su edad can mean his/her/its age or your age (formal). I would not address someone less than half my age formally—no, the bird’s age, I clarified. She laughed heartily.
Their estimate is two months.
So, language blunders aside, that’s wild. Big bird for two months old!
A girl with a falcon has been at our local park lately. The bird was rescued when both parents were killed. It didn’t know how to fly. It’s a male, smaller than the females. I still don’t know what type it is. The names she gives me don’t correspond to anything I find in the bird book. She puts a cap over its head when she drives back to Montevideo. I asked if it always made noise – It doesn’t at night 😉
