Tag: birds

Two months old!

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!

The falcon

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 😉

Baby bird

A couple days ago, as we sat outside in the evening, we noticed a small bird flitting down to the ground repeatedly under the big pine tree in our backyard. Looking more closely, I saw a tiny bit of a baby bird trying to move through the grass. Fallen out of the nest?

I got a small table and a cardboard box to put it in, so it could be safe from dogs. I carefully avoided touching it. We didn’t see if the parent bird found it.

I went out the next morning, saw a blue-gray lump under one of the leaves, and fully expected it to be dead. I gently touched it with a leaf, and it jumped up and flitted to the other side of the box, making as much noise as it possibly could.

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In the afternoon it was gone. We looked all around in the yard with no luck. No sign of anything. In the evening, again sitting in the backyard, we noticed the dog jump back from under the lemon tree as something abruptly moved. Guess who?

So back in the box. Parent bird located it. I watched the parent bird fly out of the box into the lemon tree, followed by a little grayish blur. The light was fading, but the little one had definitely left the box. Again.

No sign of it this morning. Until…

…after working a bit on the barbacoa ceiling, Daniel came into my office, hands cupped together holding – you guessed it. The baby bird had somehow gotten onto the barbacoa roof and then fell off.

So again into the box on the little table near the lemon tree. Little guy was having none of that. Out!

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“Don’t even think about it again, human!”

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So there he is, hanging out in the lemon tree, a tiny fluff ball, able to fly level a few meters and to get to a higher spot in the tree. Quite the feisty thing. Now I don’t know if he fell out of the nest to begin with, or not. Might have just decided to go for it?

I haven’t gotten a close enough look at the padre to ID the type.

Photos: Daniel Silva

Clever Horneros

At a beach entrance in Marindia, you can find one of the ubiquitous mud Hornero nests. Hornero means baker, and they are so named because their nests look like traditional mud ovens.

You know, like this. (Photo source)

But if some humans want to help and provide a ready-made solar-panel roof, well, so much the better.

The entrance to the nest faces the beach (ESE). I was told once that the birds build their nests with the opening facing east for the morning sun, but I have seen them facing several directions. The same person told me that was because they have become disoriented since the advent of cell towers.