AT LAST!

Oh, I can see that this one is going to be trouble!

Blue 500 has kept me dangling on a bit of string all this week about when she would lay her first egg. First of all, she started rejecting Samson’s advances for a day, so I thought perhaps there’s an egg on its way. Then she underlined that with being very fidgety as if she could feel something going on inside her. Then she reverted to normal. A day or so later, she suddenly got all keen on tidying up the nest and getting more material and even nest cupping, so I thought “here we go”…and then nothing. Even Samson seemed to be looking down into the nest thinking that something should be happening. Finally, she sat on the nest perch just before the camera went off at 6pm yesterday looking for all the world like there was nothing going on.

When the camera came on at 5am this morning, it revealed her innocently lying in the nest on a very murky morning; a switchover between her and Samson about 5 minutes later revealed her first egg, laid sometime when the camera was off! Anyway, we have two proud parents, both of whom want to incubate although the poor little embryo will be scrambled if 500 turns the egg over many more times. Like any new parent, she is super-conscious of her duties and gets up every minute or so to shuffle around, roll the egg and settle down again. Samson is of course far more experienced and quietly goes about his business as he has seen it all before. She has even forgotten to fish beg for most of this morning, although he did eventually go fishing without her normal encouragement.

As I did with JW6, I decided against naming 500 until the first egg was laid and the commitment to the nest was physically established. Blue 500 will be named Augusta, in memory of a very dear friend and neighbour who sadly passed away 3 days before Blue 500 arrived at the nest. I have to say that any character similarities between bird and human are strictly coincidental and had nothing to do with the naming decision, although feistiness does seem to be a characteristic common to both!

We’ve seen some amusing incidents between the birds this week but I think I’ll leave relating them until we’re sitting twiddling our thumbs waiting for the incubation period to pass. The next egg is due in a few days, possibly Monday, and Samson has already been eager to start making it, although I wish he’d wait until she was off the egg before he clambers onto her. Incubation will last for 37-42 days so Augusta is going to have to learn a bit of patience, not something that has been much in evidence so far.