Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Night jar updated

I was a bit concerned for the well being of the night jar chick because during heavy rains, there are areas on the flat concrete roof that get flooded. After scaling the heavy wooden staircase, I peeked over the retainer wall to see that the mother bird had moved to the other side of the roof, where the drainage is much better. When she saw me, she flew off to the side, landed momentarily, bounced up in the air twice and then flew off to a nearby tree. And there was our baby chick, growing stronger by the day. As I moved in to get a closeup, she surprised me by making a couple of short jumps and then she quickly found refuge in a drainage hole separating the wall with the outer edge of the roof. Notice the developing quills, not seen before. What used to be an amorphous patch of fur is now taking on the features of a bird.

1 comment:

Olle Pettersson said...

God evening Steven!
When I look up for Night jar in Wikipedia the latin name is Caprimulgus europaeus. It says nothing about its spreading to the American continent. But who cares, there at your bosue it is! We call it Nattskärra and I have seen it once on Öland in southern Sweden. Flying low in evening time.

At my blog you can see pictures of today in Tullinge. No now, not even frost. But still beautiful I think.

Olle