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It's the Magpie Family Reunion
As you no doubt know, navajo just returned from her family reunion on the Navajo Rez. There will be photos later, and I heard a rumor that there will even be video eventually.
For now, we had a family reunion of sorts here yesterday. No, not our families of two-leggeds. Feathered ones: Magpie Clan. The equivalent of six families or so, camping out in the treetops, flying overhead, letting the younger generation get to know each other, exploring the culinary options on offer here.
I've mentioned in comment threads that we had three separate magpie nests this summer, one unusually close to us. A month or so ago, the first round of hatchlings had turned into fledglings, and I passed by their nest every day on my way out to the round pen to feed Miskwaki. One morning, both parents were yammering at me nonstop from the weeping willows at the pond; oddly, they weren't trying to chase me away, which, when it happens, can't be misinterpreted. They wanted something.
On my way back, I heard a ruckus at the base of the red willows. A fledgling had fallen out of the nest, and with no tailfeathers yet, he had no rudder. He kept trying to fly upward, and kept crashing back down into the branches. So I went and grabbed some gloves, came back, picked him up, and put him in the nest. He was fine; his three siblings were fine; and I checked on them twice daily from then on to make sure we didn't have a repeat.
About ten days later, they were flying well enough for everyone to abandon the nest until next year. A few days after that, there was a ruckus in the horses' pens when I was out feeding the animals. Two young ones swooped down over Harmony's head to land on the ProPanel fence. Two more lined up next to them, then two more. Two adults, four young ones. They proceeded to chatter and squawk at me until I came to the opposite side of the fence to say hello. After talking to them for a minute or so - and letting them chatter back - they seemed satisfied, and jointly went on their way.
In the week or so after they left the nest, the next round hatched. These were right outside the window in the juniper tree, no more than two or three yards away.
I discovered them by accident (that they had hatched, I mean): I was headed out to the carport, and I heard a faint mewling sound, much like "screamer" fireworks make at a great distance. Being July, I at first thought that was what it was, and was ready to curse the moron who thought it appropriate to set those suckers off in 98-degree heat amid a massive drought.
Then I realized the sound was right behind me.
They'd just hatched. I wasn't able to see them until the next day, when Mom ran back and forth like a feeding assembly line. She let me take the photo above.
And then she let me take these, with the camera held blindly right over the nest.
Mouth wide open already. Eyes? Not so much.
Then the little guy in the photo settled calmly back in to wait. Camera hounds at one day old.
I checked on them every day, too. They got used to me coming around, sticking the camera up at them, letting it make that funny clicking noise. They also got used to the dogs lying beneath the tree.
More of "The Magpie Diaries" and Latest Updates on Kossack Regional Meet-Up News Below the New Day sunrise cloud
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