Karula National Park (Karl II and Kaia)

[Madli]

That wing is already bigger than the younger sibling

[Madli]

16.42 KAIA comes home. Karl gives her a short greeting and leaves immediately.
Karl's nest duty was 1 h 5 min.

[Madli]

Kaia stands on the edge of the nest, preening herself. She also steps closer to the kids and checks on them. I'm happy to see that Kaia is much calmer today and shows no aggression towards the chicks.
Is it because she saw that Karl's food supply is good? Or she managed to eat good herself...
But Kaia doesn't feed the chicks- they are also not begging because they are full from Karl's feeding.

[Madli]

17.05 Kaia preens the chicks for a short moment.


The trio starts twittering after that..

Kaia goes to stand away from the chicks and they become silent again.

[Madli]

Balancing excercises and wing flapping from #3.






Still needs a lot of work...

[Madli]

Dual preening


Three little sweethearts.

[Madli]

18.47 Light rain again, but the chicks are not bothered by it. They are nicely resting.

[Madli]

19.28 KARL arrives. Kaia greets him shortly and leaves.
Kaia's nest duty was 2 h 46 min.


19.30 KAIA is back...and KARL leaves
Karl was in the nest for 2 minutes!




The chicks are begging for food now..

[Madli]

19.33 FEEDING (6) A few morsels from Kaia. I don't know if everybody got something.


Kaia tries to make herself busy with arranging twigs abut the chicks keep twittering.


19.44 The chicks calm down.



I don't understand this behavior.
Kaia refuses to leave the nest- is she expecting to be fed by Karl?
Has she given up on raising the chicks? If her usual feeding places don't offer much food anymore, it's usual to try to find new feeding places..
It's good that she still protects the chicks, but they can be already alone for both parents to be out hunting.

There is still time today for Karl's return!
I hope this is just some temporary crisis and everything will be back to normal soon! ( if not- surely Kotkaklubi will think of some solution to ease the situation)

[marika.solo]

I saw a (very little) similar situation on one nest of white storks, where a female with a broken leg was unable to catch food and so ate the food that the male carried to the young (gradually all died ),
she survived the winter and returned to her nest in spring (she lost part of her leg), but however, the new female did not let her into the nest anymore

finger crossed for this family very, very much!