Week 41, 2025

12 Oct 2025

It's been a few weeks since my last weeknotes. Turns out I don't have a lot of news from week to week, which is probably why I didn't keep up with weeknotes all the other times I started them.

We did see a play at MTC this week, which I think is the first live theatre we've seen since the start of Covid. It was okay, a solid 3/5 stars.

In bird news, Guardian's Bird of the Year voting is open until 15 October and you can vote anew each day as the pack gets smaller. I've been mostly voting for the Wedge-tailed eagle, since it's the only eagle on the list, but there's a big crowd pushing for the Tawny frogmouth to win this year and it's doing well so far.

The Sea Eagle chicks are growing fast. Look at those adorable faces:

They're "wingersizing" and jumping around the nest a lot these days, and the older one is just starting to venture onto the edges of the nest and into the big branches of their tree.

They're also learning to mantle over their food and self-feed, and they don't fight very much these days, which is a relief.

The Port Lincoln Osprey eggs are close to hatching now, though this weekend Mum has been acting strangely and not incubating the eggs as much as usual. Nobody knows what's up with her, but hopefully everything will turn out okay.

UFO, the Crowned Eagle in South Africa who hatched 2 goose eggs earlier this year, has recently turned up again and started spending lots of time at the nest. No eggs yet, but fingers crossed there might be one soon.

The Bearded Vulture in South Africa and the Philippine Eagle pair have both had streaming issues recently, and haven't been seen for days. The Bearded Vulture chick was getting pretty big last time I saw it, but has a few weeks left before fledging time, I think.

I've recently discovered a new Bearded Vulture nest to watch, though: Huesos and Montañesa are injured and live in a conservation facility in Spain. They've recently started getting ready for the breeding season by working on their nest, and they spend a lot of time lying in the nest together and preening each other, which is very cute.

Some Bald eagle pairs have returned to their nests and started prepping for the next breeding season already, too. Jackie and Shadow have dropped in to say hello, but aren't around much yet. But the NEFL nest in Florida has some nest-building activity almost every morning (local time) at the moment.

You can find links to the live streams of all these nests on my nests page.