Meet my neighbours

Posts

• Obelixx Posts: 30,090

  May 2018

  Lovely to see KP.  There are storks in this area too, on the northern edges of the Marais Poitevin nearer the coast from us and I saw a pair doing a mating flight and dance in a paddock I can see upstairs before the trees leaf up.  No nests seen yet tho.

  Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
  

  "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."

  Plato
  

  0
• Fire Posts: 19,096

  May 2018 edited May 2018

  ooo, I've not seen a Youtube live stream before. Where do you live?
  

  0
• kleipieper Posts: 563

  May 2018

  @Obelixx, in the seventies storks had almost disappeared here in The Netherlands, but as a result of some special projects there are now plenty of them around again.

  I know of several nests here in the region, many of them helped by local farmers, who put up the basic structures on their land. The nest in the webstream is on the land of a farmer, who put up a 9 meter high pole in one of his fields, with the basic structure for the nest on top.

  Before this couple of storks decide to nest there, I often saw them fly over here, hence my interest.

  The farmer, together with the regional TV channel, set up the camera, and the webstream.

  Unfortunately the birds regularly poo on the lens, so the poor farmer has to climb up all the way to clean it.
  

  0
• kleipieper Posts: 563

  May 2018

  @pansyface, storks have a different diet than herons. They mainly hunt for food in water meadows and other fields. I sometimes see them walking in fields with cows. They mainly eat amphibians, and small mammals, including moles, if they can catch them. But they also eat reptiles and birds, often chicks from ground nesting birds.
  

  0
• kleipieper Posts: 563

  May 2018

  @ Fire, I live in The Netherlands, right in the middle, between those two big rivers.

  Our local TV station has two more live streams on youtube at the moment. One is of a family of swifts, I believe,

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32m2WxfPNvE

    and the other one is of bees.

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha0NGei21_U
  
  
  
  
  

  0
• kleipieper Posts: 563

  May 2018

  The little stork family has had an eventful time so far.

  They had 5 eggs, but only 4 of them hatched.

  The smallest chick soon died, and last weekend another one fell out of the nest and didn't survive the fall.The farmer found the little body later.

  I hope the two surviving chicks will make it, but they don't seem to be getting much food at the moment and it's very hot for them. Temperatures are expected to reach 29 or so again today.
  

  0
• Fire Posts: 19,096

  May 2018

  Thanks for that! Such a tiny nest for the  swifts. I guess the bee-cam works less well if the camera is covered in bees, but a great idea for a live stream. And great to hear  bird song in the background that I have never heard before. It sounds very exotic. Lol.
  

  0
• Blue Onion Posts: 2,995

  May 2018

  Hah.. the chicks whining sounds just like my two boys.. 

  Utah, USA.

  0
• Fire Posts: 19,096

  May 2018

  Are there two nests in the swift box? It looks like one has an unattended egg. Perhaps they have started again, since yesterday, on the other side of the nest. A bit hard to tell from the camera angles.
  

  0
• Bee witched Posts: 1,295

  May 2018

  Hi KP,
  
  Lovely to see these streams ...
  Can't believe how pale and stripey those bees are ... my bees in Scotland are almost black ... and they would soon have that camera lens gummed up with propolis!
  
  Bee x

  Gardener and beekeeper in beautiful Scottish Borders  
  
  A single bee creates just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime
  

  0