Notes to readers of this Blog


NOTES TO READERS OF THIS BLOG

Thank you for dropping by to check out my blog. You will see a lot of other Blogs about birds I follow down the left hand side. I strongly encourage you to check some of these out as well, they are entertaining and I love to see birds from all over the world, I hope you do too.
Cheers,
Richard

Monday 28 September 2015

Black-breasted Buzzards - photos and video of copulation

Recently I was alerted by a friend of a nesting site for a pair of Black-breasted Buzzards. Over the past week or so, I have taken lots of photos and quite a few videos. I have only included one of the videos on this post, probably more to come in later posts.

I have noticed a few things over the past week. For a start, the female spends the most time on the nest and is by far the most vocal. She doesn't seem to worried about most birds flying nearby, but has taken exception to the Black Kites and Little Eagles. There is a pair of nesting Brown Goshawks in a tree almost right next to the Buzzard nest but she isn't worried about them at all, maybe they are too low. She also doesn't seem fussed by the Zebra Finches that sit on the underside of the nest, again, probably too small and too much effort for not much gain. The male seems to be doing the majority of the "couple hunting", the female seems to hunt only for herself, I haven't noticed her bringing food back to the nest at all. The male also leaves the nest prior to the female arriving, whereas she tends to wait until he has landed before taking off, sometimes almost immediately, other times after a few minutes.

The first photo was taken when the pair had just copulated. I almost feel as though she was saying "hey buddy, next time you're doing what I just did, let me know so I can come and watch!" (She will be waiting a long time!)

Black-breasted Buzzard










And the video is of the pair copulating, with a peck on the neck, and a beak to beak moment towards the end.

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