Holcim Observations on Thursday April 9th
April 09, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Tracy Simpson Reports:
With all of the changes at the Holcim nest site, I was very concerned about Caspian these past few days and so I have made regular visits each day to check in on her. On Thursday with the heavy rains and intense weather setting in I came down for about three hours to see if she was maintaining her position on the eggs. She came off briefly at around 11am and was sitting on the low silos to the east of the nest ledge. She was there for about 15 minutes calling and looking for her mate Storm and received no response from the young male that I spotted the other day. She returned to the nest ledge and disappeared into it. The rain wasn’t at its most intense yet and she appeared to be maintaining her position. In a perfect scenario, the pair would share the incubation, her doing most of it, giving her a break to eat and dry off. Right now she is alone and doesn’t have a supportive male. At noon the immature male arrived and flew through the plant landing on the high silos. He called her several times but with no response from her. He took off and flew through the plant again and after 5 minutes he landed on the high silos out of my view. A few minutes later I caught sight of him off on a hunt and I hoped that if he was successful that he would instinctively think to bring her some food. He didn’t. Caspian came off the eggs again at around 12:30pm and went looking for caches on the low silos to the east of the nest ledge. She found a little something there that she ate and then remained on her perch until 1:30 when she once again returned to the eggs. I left after about three hours and can say that she has maintained her position on the eggs during my observation period with the exception of one brief perching period and one period out that lasted one hour. No other bird went into the nest and took her place during that time. I know that serious weather with heavy rains is moving in through the overnight and she will struggle to stay on those eggs and protect them by herself. I will check back tomorrow and see how she’s doing.