Bird notes week 16, 2026

13 Apr 2026

Some notes on what's been happening in the bird world lately:

Rakiura's Kākāpō babies are up and about a little more now, if you catch them at the right time.

Bald eagle chick Peanut is still in the nest, but looking closer and closer to fledging. He's also putting up with multiple owl attacks every night, it seems like, which is how his sibling Brutus ended up falling out of the nest a few weeks ago.

Update 15 April

Peanut has fledged! He left just before 7pm his time on 13 April. I shared a short video of his fledge in this toot.

Bald eagle chick stands with wings open — Bald eagle chick Peanut holds his wings out in a "heraldic" pose.

The albatross chicks at Midway Atoll and at the Plateau nest in NZ are all moving around a bit more. Plateau chick is getting really big now, too. You can see the difference well when a parent shows up to feed him and he's nearly as big as them.

Albatross chick and its parent — Plateau chick stands facing one of its parents, showing how big he's getting.

Several nest boxes with live cams have owl chicks right now: 3 tawny owl chicks, and 2 barred owl chicks and another 4 tawny owl chicks.

Two barn owl chicks — The two barred owl chicks in their nest box. I love how owl babies stand and sleep leaning against each other all the time.

I also recently discovered this live stream of a pair of burrowing owls, who are fun to watch.

Burrowing owls standing on a man-made burrow — The burrowing owls are active during the day, which mostly means standing guard outside their burrow, from what I've seen so far.

Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow have two chicks in the nest that are both doing well.

Bald eagle chicks in nest — A rare moment when Jackie and Shadow's new chicks aren't fighting over who's boss.

Lady and Dad, the white-bellied sea eagles in Sydney, have visited their nest a little bit recently and started renovations for the coming season. And that's about it for this week.