Roosting arrangements and a fledging

Harriet (left) and M spending the evening side by side in their nest tree at SWFL Bald Eagle cam.

 

And their almost 6-month-old daughter E15 is still around, too. We'll see for how much longer, as the next nesting season's preparations should start soon according to their usual schedule, but for now she's home for the night as well.

E15 flies to the branch with her parents and squees. Maybe looking for supper (looks like she has a full crop, though, so maybe not), or just more space in her chosen spot to sleep in? M is in the middle here, as Harriet jumped over him to make room for E15.

M ends up taking the couch (the next pine over), and E15 goes to sleep next to mom.

In other news about birds whose nesting I follow, Atawhai the Royal Albatross chick has fledged today! She walked outside camera view to do it, but here's the last footage of her on camera in the morning.

Wishing safe travels to Atawhai, and to E16 somewhere out there.

Only butterfly I've seen all summer

A mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) stopped to rest just outside my balcony for a moment.

Also Masu wanted to cuddle before I'd put the camera away.

Knead knead.

Leaves are starting to change

It's gonna

gonna

gonna

gonnaaa

It's gonna be fall!

Catching up with Atawhai

It's been a long time since I last posted screenshots of this adorable Royal Albatross chick. She has grown so much!

Good moorning! Who's that beautiful sea bird stretching her big wings?

It's the baby! No longer so much of a baby - Atawhai is 222 days old today, and not far from fledging now. Albatross chicks mature slowly, and the parents only have one chick every two years. The first chick from her colony fledged today, though, so catch a glimpse of her while you can. Albatrosses live at sea and only come to land for the mating season, and this season's chicks won't be taking part in that for at least four years after fledging.

Bright Trike

Picked up a bright orange ball at the store ("blind bag" type toys called Dino Strike) and it hatched a bright orange Triceratops. Some assembly required.

It's pretty cute, and in terms of anatomy it gets points for not suffering from a case of elephant feet like the JWFK mini included for scale here and many quadrupedal dinosaur depictions in general. Why reconstructing these guys with limbs modeled after big mammals might be inaccurate probably becomes pretty clear when, instead of focusing on that they're big and quadrupedal herbivores, one remembers that a) out of all extant animals, they're most closely related to birds, and that b) the early ceratopsians that late Cretaceous giants like Triceratops evolved from were bipedal. (It has a wrong number of toes - should be three on front limbs and four on hind limbs - so not completely accurate either, but good effort.)

It had a bunch of Dino Riders-esque gear with it that I didn't put on it, but the projectile launching mechanism on that works well and I'm sure it would be fun to play with.

I think I'll give it some paint later.

Rainbow Success!

With a bonus faint second rainbow above it, if you can make it out. Touches the foliage where it meets the edge of the photo.

Dinosaur tranquilizing thoughts

(spoilers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. TW: needles)

I've seen a few people express confusion about how Rexy was captured during Isla Nublar's evacuation - how did they get her in the cage when she's obviously not even tranquilized since she's making noise? That part was never all that confusing to me (where exactly did they capture her, though, and where did she go after crushing that poor Carnotaurus? Where was she when the pyroclastic flow Owen was apparently immune to reached the cliff? Who knows).