Week 20, 2026

18 May 2026

We went to the You Yangs this week, to see if I could spot some raptors. It was really quiet and peaceful, but we didn't see many birds. I did spot two raptors circling over the hills, but they were too far away to identify, even with binoculars. Otherwise we saw some magpies and fairy wrens, and a group of white-winged choughs, which I've never seen in the wild before, but no other raptors this time.

A woman in a park, looking through binoculars — Me looking for raptors, photo courtesy of Josh

I've been trying out Pipilo, an iOS app for Mastodon, lately. It has an interesting approach to the timeline, where you swipe horizontally, viewing one post at a time. I'm not sure if I love it, but I've been drawn to open it a bunch of times this week.

I also rediscovered this old Jonathan Boulet album and listened to it a lot this week. It's fun, in a similar vein to his debut album.

A couple of snaps of Jackie & Shadow's chicks from this week:

Two bald eagle chicks — Sandy and Luna sizing each other up

Two bald eagle chicks side by side — Sandy, the older chick on the right, has a slight curve to the gape—you can see the yellow of the mouth turns up a little at the end, while Luna's is more straight

Some new live nest cams I've been watching this week: black storks (1 and 2)

A black stork with four chicks — Black storks have white babies, apparently

A crested serpent eagle nest in Taiwan

Crested goshawk nests in Taiwan (1 and 2) and a Eurasian curlew nest.

And some other bird snaps from this week, just because:

Three common buzzard chicks in a nest — One of the common buzzard babies gives its sibling a look after said sibling spat out a pellet right onto its back

A white-bellied sea eagle stands on a branch — Lady and Dad have been at the nest every morning and night lately, spending lots of time and effort prepping for eggs that will hopefully arrive sometime in June

The Manton Bay osprey eggs have started hatching, too.