Figurehead

It's about time I get to this end of the raptor figure I'm making.

I started by making the parts that go inside the mouth. I'll paint the figure once it's sculpted, but I want to make these pieces out of clay that's already the right colour, so I don't have to try to fit a brush in there for anything precise.

First, making tiny teeth.

Unpredictable as ever

The bald eagle nesting season is full of dramatic twists.

The two eggs tirelessly cared for by Jackie and Shadow at Big Bear Valley it seems are both inviable and not going to hatch (statement by U.S. Forest Service on the matter can be read here). It's sad to see, but I'll keep observing them, too, to see where things go from here. Jackie and Shadow are both still quite young eagle parents, being 7 and 5 years old, respectively - bald eagles reach adulthood at 4-5 years old, and this current nesting season is their second one together. I hope future seasons give them lots of eaglets to raise to fledging, and it will be interesting in its own right to see how they deal with the outcome of this season.

As another twist, it seems the season is indeed not over at the Southwest Florida nest, as the unlikeliest version of an unlikely scenario has happened after all - Harriet has just laid her third egg of the season, the first egg of her and M15's second clutch this season! Plenty of people had been wondering if that might happen after the pair sadly lost their only hatchling earlier this year, though keeping in mind second clutches have been observed very rarely, and even more rarely if the first one had already hatched. Then suddenly, egg.

Harriet at the nest just now, with a nice view of the egg for the camera before she shimmies back onto it again.

Who needs TV when you've got eagles.

Shrimping and floundering

Indominus rex Protection Group

Thinking about how humans portray animals again, so I guess this is a "good and bad monsters, part 2", now with less focus on raptor shipping.

(Spoilers for all the Jurassic Park/World movies out so far)

Pin the tail on the raptor

I made an armature for the Skyefigure's tailfan out of masking tape, and added some aluminum foil for filler to the tail.

I rolled clay into flat, thin sheets again with a round glass jar, and covered the tail with them. Then I cut out excess clay, flattened the clay a bit more towards the edges, then cut it into shape again, back and forth for quite a while, and did my best to blend the seams together. I shaped the big flight feathers using the silicon brush tool a bit, but mostly a sewing pin (it's starting to become my favorite sculpting tool).

Valentine's Day at dino nests

The big news is Starr of the Trio Eagles nest laid her first egg of this season yesterday afternoon! Amidst some enthusiastic nest decorating help from her mates Valor 1 and Valor 2, lol. Congrats to the mom and dads!

At the Big Bear Eagles nest, Jackie and Shadow's first egg is expected to hatch any day now, and the livestream viewers and camera operators are carefully watching and zooming for a glimpse of a pip on the shell every time one of the parents gets up. A pip is the first little hole a hatching baby bird pecks into the egg shell, after which it varies by species how long it usually takes for the baby to completely break out of the egg. For bald eagles it can take a day (or less, in any case it's pretty quick compared to albatrosses, who apparently can take six whole days to finish hatching!).

Currently both Starr and Jackie are brooding in their nests for the night, beak nuzzled in back feathers as they sleep.

Also, they both got a fish! Valor 2 brought one for Starr (and Valor 1 brought her a stick) a bit before she laid the egg, and Shadow brought one for Jackie. (Warning for both fishes not being quite dead yet, though.)

(edit later to add this pretty shot of Shadow brooding at sunrise:)

 (No pip confirmed yet.)

The Southwest Florida Eagles nest has camera problems right now, it seems, but a fish gift M15 brought Harriet the day before counts. I mean, animals don't care about human holidays, of course, but it's a fun excuse to share observations of cute interactions.

At the Royal Albatross nest, the family had a reunion as mom albatross returned for her brooding shift after foraging for food at sea. Both parents have been quick to get back to their now two-week-old chick recently (their shifts can usually last several days), so there's been preening cuddles more frequently than usual.

Mom and baby about an hour ago (around 6 PM today, time zones are confusing, it's still morning here).

Plumage for the clay birb

Putting some clay on the Skyefigure's armature. Also added a wire for attaching the arms later.

A fun little alignment chart

(I didn't come up with the blank chart, it's been circling around on tumblr.)

Not an assessment of how good or not good each movie is or which ones I like more, I believe this sums up each one's both strengths and weaknesses. Somehow.

Bonus round:

Just going and making a new dinosaur

As the JW raptor pack residing in my bookcase (or raptor case, they got a new one all to themselves) has been getting up to date with the comics I draw of them, one member of the family is still stuck at being represented by the small and featherless figure the character has since outgrown.

Skye was originally inspired by my Blue mini figure, and the whole AU she's part of was largely inspired by how well that mini figure fits on the Indoraptor figure's head. I've had trouble finding a figure to customize into her older self, though, so I thought I'd try my hand at just making one from scratch.

I'm using bakeable polymer clay for most of the figure, and probably adding things with epoxy putty when I'm done with the baking. I barely know what I'm doing, but let's see what comes out of that anyway.

Rabbit visits albatross nest

At 7:36 AM local time (Feb 9th), a rabbit showed up on the Royal Albatross Cam.

 Dad albatross clacked his beak at the rabbit as it hopped past the nest.

Then the rabbit went away over the hill behind the nest.

A favorite Velo

Adding another figure to my group of feathered Velociraptors. This one is by a company called Favorite, released in 2013.

And it is indeed (mostly) fully feathered. I wasn't sure from the photos I saw if the brown areas might be scaly, but looks like they're pennaceous feathers after all, so that's lovely. No tail fan or primaries, though, and no feathers on the face, but I love the little pink wattle it's got at the throat. The figure has a base, but mine didn't fit on it; the feet are a bit closer together than what would match the pegs on the base. It stands just fine without a base, though.

It's about the same size as the bigger Safari Velociraptors, one of which has joined the photoshoot for a shared scream, about flight feather-eating mites, perhaps. But the Favorite one has a secret weapon, which is extra flight feathers on the legs! Not so sure Velociraptor actually had those, though some small dromaeosaurids certainly did.

(The seller also included an origami crane in the box, so I got two dinosaurs at the price of one! Thank you!)

Assistant unboxer Masu assessing the sturdy packaging. I'm keeping the pretty back card, for which it's fortunate the bubble plastic wasn't glued to it, instead it's folded over the edges.

Wimdy

Bald eagle couple Harriet and M15 hanging out at their nest tree that's swaying around in some pretty tough wind today.

M at the attic, talons locked on the branch.

Harriet prefers to hunker down at the nest. M joins her, and they spend some time facing the gusts side by side. M on the left (top of the screen), Harriet on the right.

Incoming Masu!

The last thing you see before...

...she sniffs the camera lens.

Fluffy Velo population increase

My feathered Velociraptor family has gained a new member!

The new addition is in the middle, and also fits in the middle in terms of when these were made. All three are Safari Ltd. figures, from left to right apparently from 2009, 2015, and 2017, respectively. (The 2009 one I've painted a little, you can see here how it looked straight out of the package.) It's a nice sample of evolution in accuracy of dinosaur figures, at least for one company. Obviously two of them have a bit of an extra advantage in being big enough to include a lot of detail, but ignoring that, it's pretty cool to see the plumage get progressively fluffier and birdier, and especially the wings have gotten more functional-looking with each one.

More of spying on modern dinosaurs

It looks like I've added the Royal Albatross Cam from New Zealand to nestcams I'm keeping an eye on. A chick hatched there a few days ago, and the glimpses I've caught of the tiny fuzzball on the livestream myself have been pretty limited, but luckily there are excellent captures by other people out there to keep me posted (check out the video descriptions, too, for information on the birds and their behavior, and on the conservation program). The parents themselves are adorable with each other, too, when they're at the nest at the same time. Their brooding shifts last several days, so mom albatross actually saw her baby for the first time just today!

(For viewing the videos and stream, I should mention that unlike raptors, albatrosses feed their young by regurgitating, in case that's something you don't want to see. If so, there are clips about other activities than feeding, too.)

Early morning, so the camera's still in night mode here. Chick peeking from the nest a tiny bit from under dad.

A better, though quick look I caught the next day! Mom just got up to turn around and then plopped right back down to brooding. Just enough to interrupt the little one's nap. :D

On the raptor front, the Big Bear eagles are continuing to incubate their eggs (less than two weeks to go, now! The incubation period is 35 days, though for the first egg likely a bit longer due to delayed incubation to let the second egg catch up, and the high altitude can cause longer incubation in general, so may take as long as 42 days, too). And the Trio nest is also starting to enter the stage in their nesting season where eggs can be expected. They've certainly been doing their best to make some, lol.

I've also continued to keep an eye on the Southwest Florida nest. No eaglets, but the adults Harriet and M15 are fascinating in their own right, and the camera continues to let us observe their behavior in the aftermath of their first complete loss of a clutch.