Chapter 98 Bald Eagle (Part 3)
I heard the chicks of bald eagles begging for food "chirp chirp". They looked like starving ghosts and seemed to have to eat within five minutes.
A raven that came by chance to look for food was stunned.
As one of the few highly intelligent species among birds that possesses a "brain", Crow fell into deep thought.
First, it confirmed that it was a mother bird and did have the instinct to incubate eggs and feed chicks.
The problem is... this crow is only 5 months old, has just left the nest and is still two years away from sexual maturity, so it is impossible for her to lay eggs.
Even if it can lay eggs, it has no partner now!!!
“…”
The crow stood silently on the edge of the bird's nest, its thinking ability temporarily stopped.
Reason told Yaya that this bunch of furry, big-eyed, clear-voiced chicks in front of him had nothing to do with him.
However, when she heard the pitiful chirping of the baby birds, she felt that the dormant maternal instinct in her body was awakened.
Obviously, the little baby bird was not of the same species, but the crow seemed to understand his begging cries.
Yu Yiyun rolled over and buried herself in the crow's soft belly feathers, chirping and begging for food for a long time.
As a result, Yaya just stood there, stunned, as if his brain was restarting.
It's already shaken, good chance!
Little Jiujiu, who possesses the innate skill of kleptophagy and parasitism and used to be on good terms with Yaya, cleared his throat and changed his voice.
“Quack~Quack~”
Little Jiujiu chirped twice, and Crow's confused eyes suddenly became clear.
It seemed to understand the chirping sound just now, but not quite.
But the gaga gaga now definitely sounds like a chick of its own kind!
Rounding off, he must be my own cub~!
The immature, single female raven, driven by maternal instinct, immediately responded with a 'quack quack' sound, gently comforting the hungry cub.
Unlike killer whales, whose brain capacity can reach over 7,000 ml, the proportion of the brain to the body of eagles is extremely disproportionate.
When a bald eagle weighs more than 10 kilograms, its brain capacity is only about 10 milliliters.
In comparison, the raven, which weighs about 2-3 kilograms, has a brain capacity of nearly 15 ml, making it the Einstein of the raptor world.
However, even the smarter corvids still act on instinct in most cases.
The brain capacity of just two digits is not enough to support their ability to have a function like "language" which requires a large amount of memory.
Whether it is the Corvidae or the Accipitridae, newborn raptor chicks have thin necks, big eyes, and are covered with soft down.
Most of the time, even parent birds find it difficult to recognize which is which, and they mainly rely on calls to identify their own kind.
At this moment, the benefits of learning a foreign language are reflected~!
“Quack~Quack~”
After all, Yu Yijun had been living with Crow for more than two years. Although he couldn't understand bird language, he could imitate its calls so well that it was indistinguishable from the real thing.
The young crow had not downloaded the anti-fraud app and was easily fooled by the little chirp. It made a 'cackle' sound as a comfort, then quickly spread its wings and flew out of the nest to look for food.
Ravens are much smaller than bald eagles, have less hooked beaks, and have thinner claws, so they cannot go out to sea to fish or kill larger prey.
Even though their hunting ability is not as good as that of eagles, ravens can lay 3-7 eggs during each breeding season, and more than half of the chicks can survive and leave the nest.
Cain-Abel syndrome is not obvious in raven nests, mainly because ravens are very good at cooking and can provide enough food for their young.
Ravens are absolute opportunists with a very diverse diet.
They dare to take risks to snatch meat from wild beasts and can accept severely decayed animal carcasses.
When meat is unavailable, ravens can feed their chicks fruits and seeds, greatly increasing the survival rate of the chicks.
Their claws are not enough to kill large animals, but they are more than enough to deal with small animals.
The female raven, who had just become a mother two minutes ago, spread her jet-black wings and circled in the air for a few circles. Her eyes quickly locked onto a spotted-necked pika that had just emerged from its hole to look for food under the tree.
It folded its wings and landed silently on a lower branch, staring at the pika.
When the spotted-necked pika is farther away from the burrow and there is no other cover around, the raven spreads its wings and dives towards it.
The speed of birds diving is much faster than that of flying.
The flying speed of a raven is about 30-60 kilometers per hour, and the diving speed can be increased to 100 kilometers!
The flying speed of the bald eagle is about 70 kilometers per hour, and the diving speed reaches a terrifying 160-240 kilometers per hour!!!
Sudden attack from the sky, the spotted-necked pika had no time to react and was caught by the raven's legs, experiencing the only high-altitude flight in its life.
The raven held the spotted-necked pika in its mouth, flapped its wings and flew to the bird's nest more than ten meters above the ground, calling its cackling cackling.
"Ga ga~" When little Jiujiu heard the sound, he knew that the takeaway had been delivered and immediately responded with the most excited voice.
At the same time, he secretly thought that each cricket hunt would take several hours for the parent bird.
It’s too slow. Look at my godmother’s efficiency!
[Recognize mom everywhere.jpg]
At the beginning, the brother and sister found that strange crows had invaded their nest, and they were so scared that they screamed and trembled.
They didn't even bother to pinch each other, they just stuck their butts out and buried their heads in each other's chests.
At this moment, I found that the raven actually brought food, and my survival instinct overcame my fear in a minute.
The two chicks hatched earlier, and although they still could not stand, they were very agile.
Before the skinny little cicada pupa could come over, the two big chicks had already come up to the raven, pushing and shoving each other, their mouths opening wider and wider.
"Chiji!" Hey me!
"Coo, choo!" Feed me first!
The raven heard their calls, but the voice recognition failed.
"Ga ga?" Where did the wild bird come from?
"Ga!" Get out!
The raven flapped its wings to drive them away fiercely, then picked up the spotted-necked pika and jumped to Yu Yiyun who was still working hard to make a cricket pupae.
The bald eagle's nest is very large, with a width of more than two meters and the bowl in the middle is nearly one meter.
The baby bird was fanned to the edge of the bowl and watched helplessly as the raven tore the pika apart and fed the meat to its little brother mouthful by mouthful, and it squealed in anxiety.
They struggled and squirmed for a long time but still couldn't get close to the feeding area, and were forced to watch their own brother's live eating show.
The spotted-necked pika weighs about 150 grams and can be eaten after the head is removed. The net weight is enough for an ordinary bald eagle cub to have a full meal.
hehe.
Yu Yijun is not an ordinary sea eagle cub at all, but a sea eagle cub that is determined to become a little fat bird!
The raven worked hard to feed the food, and the skinny little chick worked hard to digest it. If it couldn't digest it, it would store it all in its crop.
After eating a whole spotted-necked pika, Yu Yiyun still opened his mouth wide and made a caw like begging for food.
“Ga ga~”
“…Huh?”
The raven was briefly confused again.
Although it has never hatched eggs, when it was young, it ate more than a whole nest of chicks combined.
"Quack! Quack!"
I'm hungry! I want food!
The skinny little bird cried so miserably, as if it hadn't eaten for five seconds.
The female raven successfully recognized the voice, and her maternal instinct was aroused again. She immediately spread her wings and started searching mode again.
Not long after, it found another fatter spotted-necked pika in the hole where it had just caught the pika. It seemed to be a companion of the previous pika.
It’s decided to be you!
A family of mice should be neat and tidy!
The raven used the same tactic, taking the spotted-necked pika to experience high-altitude flight and reuniting it with its companion in the crop of the skinny little bird.
Since the female raven is so efficient at hunting, it only takes about ten minutes.
When Rourou was fed to the baby's mouth again, his crop was so full that he couldn't eat any more.
The brother and sister who pushed the cricket pupa hard finally rolled over and opened their mouths wide to get two bites of meat.
My own baby is full, and the remaining meat is not enough for me to eat. It’s a pity to waste it.
The raven was addicted to feeding. Even though the two birds that came over were ugly and not as cute as its own cubs, it still pecked the meat and fed them.
Raven, who has only been a mother for half an hour, has no concept of "the strong first". When feeding her, you take a bite at a time.
The older brother, who hatched first and was used to snatching food, found it difficult to accept the sudden fair treatment for a while.
He was still domineering, pecking his sister with his hooked beak as usual, warning her not to raise her head to beg for food.
After pecking his sister, the brother saw the skinny little bird who had dared to eat a whole pika before him. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, and he flapped his wings, ready to teach the little bird a lesson.
After flapping its wings twice, the raven discovered that the ugly bird had eaten the food it had given to its cub and was actually bullying it. It immediately became furious!
"Ha!" The raven pecked him hard on the forehead. After that, no matter how the strong elder brother begged for food, it remained unmoved and fed all the remaining meat to its sister.
The older sister doesn’t have a big brain, but her learning and adaptability are better than the older one.
When she saw her brother being pecked by the raven, she immediately realized two things: "I can't snatch food from my brother" and "but it doesn't matter if I snatch food from my brother."
After the raven had fed the remaining half of the pika, it cackled twice to say goodbye to its baby cub.
"Ga ga~" Yu Yijun, who has a short beak, gave enough emotional value, and the call was so sticky.
"Ga!" The raven flapped its wings contentedly and flew away to look for food.
As soon as it left, the male bald eagle, which had been out to sea for half a day, finally returned with prey.
He ate the fish head as usual and was about to give the rest to his partner to feed the cubs, but he found that his partner was not in the nest.
The male bald eagle put down the fish, jumped around in the nest looking for a mate, calling out "oyioyi" helplessly.
Yu Yiyun had been incubating for most of the day, and her eyes had gradually adapted to the surrounding environment, and she could at least see the situation inside the bird's nest clearly.
The moment the male bald eagle...his daddy...flew back to the nest, Yu Yiyun immediately understood why the mother had left her cubs and risked her life to go out and look for food.
The bald eagle in front of me has very new feathers, and it looks like it has just replaced its skin.
Newborn bald eagles are covered with gray-brown down. It will take about two months for them to slowly grow dark brown feathers, making them look like gray-haired native chickens.
Subsequently, bald eagles maintain the skin of a 'gray-haired pheasant' throughout their subadulthood.
It is not until it reaches sexual maturity that its head feathers turn into the familiar white color.
Looking at the male bald eagle's new head feathers, Yu Yiyun concluded:
My daddy is at most four years old this year, no more!
What happened to the promise of 'not talking about younger men'?
After several twists and turns, the younger boy was actually mentioned by my mother.
Bald eagles form a lifelong partnership system and will not divorce unless there are unexpected circumstances.
But if one partner dies, the surviving bald eagle will look for a new partner.
The female bald eagle's skill in incubating eggs and feeding her cubs indicates that this is definitely not her first time as a mother.
On the other hand, the male bald eagle, unable to find his mate when he returned home, picked up the fish and put it down in confusion, not knowing how to feed his chicks. He was obviously a novice father.
——Mommy is not only talking about a younger man, but also a second marriage.
The beaks of chicks that are just a few days old are not sharp enough and they are unable to feed themselves.
If there hadn't been a kind-hearted crow 'passing by', the three baby birds would have probably starved to death while waiting for their daddy to feed them.
"quack!"
Seeing that his father was standing there in a daze with no intention of feeding him, Yu Yiyun made begging sounds in an attempt to awaken his father's love.
Unexpectedly, instead of awakening the father's love, the father became alert and observed from all directions to see if there were any enemy birds.
Normally, bald eagles would not regard a mere raven as an enemy bird.
However, there are exceptions during the early stages of incubation and brooding.
The female bald eagle had warned him long ago to be on the lookout for ravens, cunning birds that sometimes deliberately harassed eagles incubating their eggs, trying to lure them out of the nest and steal the unhatched eggs.
The novice bird dad has little experience, but is quite responsible.
When you hear the raven's cry, you immediately go into cub-protecting mode.
Yu Yiyun realized belatedly that she was so used to speaking in "crow language" that she forgot to switch for a while.
The little skinny bird immediately changed back to its original cry, chirping to beg for food from its daddy.
Finding there were no ravens around, the male bald eagle relaxed and looked down to see the fur ball of cricket pupae at his feet.
Little Jiujiu used its head, the only part of its body that could move freely, to lean over and touch the fish with its little beak.
"Chirp!" You, peck here with your beak.
"Chichi!" Bit off the meat.
"Chirp!" Then feed it into my mouth!
Every time Yu Yiyun chirped, she would stare at her father with her little eyes full of anticipation.
After walking for half a lifetime, she returned as the skinny little kid with big eyes. She blinked her nictitating membrane, hoping that her stupid daddy would get what she meant quickly.
When Yu Yiyun repeated it for the third time, the male bald eagle finally reacted.
He imitated the little skinny chick, pecked off the fattest meat from the herring's belly and fed it into the chick's mouth.
The other two baby birds howled for a long time until their voices were almost hoarse. They found that their daddy had finally mastered the feeding technique and couldn't wait to roll over to him!
Two big baby birds came over from the left and right, both seemed a little hesitant.
My brother had just been pecked on the head and was still in pain, so he didn't dare to beg for food as recklessly as usual.
The elder sister, who was good at learning from experience, knew that she would be pecked if she snatched food from her younger brother, so she just stood by and waited pitifully.
Yu Yiyun had just eaten half a pika, so she wasn't that hungry anymore.
After eating two bites of the herring belly, he was so full that he burped and rolled away, using his short wings to support his bloated belly.
The sister couldn't wait to take her brother's place and opened her mouth.
When a male bald eagle feeds his chicks for the first time, he does not have the concept of "the strong eat more".
Seeing that the two chicks did not fight over the food, he took turns feeding them the fish.
As they were fed, the bellies of the three chicks became visibly swollen.
Yu Yiyun looked at the fish brought back by the male sea eagle, and then looked at his body which had not yet reached its peak and was two sizes smaller than that of the female bird. He suddenly understood why his father spent so much time hunting.
Friends who have raised eagles know that male birds love to show off their charm in front of their partners.
The bald eagle has an extremely complex courtship dance. After the male and female birds fly together, they will grab each other's claws and hold each other tightly in the air.
Then they fell while spinning in circles until they separated a few seconds before leaving the ground.
Sometimes, in order to show off their skills, bald eagles miscalculate the time and landing point of releasing their claws, resulting in both of them crashing or falling into the water and becoming drowned eagles.
People often take pictures of bald eagles' failed courtship and make them into collections, adding them to the animal world's sand sculpture appreciation material.
In addition to the courtship conspicuous bag, male birds will also use various means to attract the attention of female birds.
One of the ways is to catch big fish and give it to the female bird.
Young bald eagles, in order to impress their mature mates, will definitely target the largest fish in the sea!
As a result, because the weight of the fish was beyond the hunting range, he had to exert a lot of effort and was even dragged into the water by the fish before he finally subdued it.
After drying the feathers, I planned to take them home to show off to my partner, but unfortunately my partner was not at home.
The lonely male bald eagle fed all the children by himself and began to clean up the remaining food scraps.
At the same time, two sounds of flapping wings were heard from different directions in the sky.
The raven, which was very efficient in hunting, flew back first, bringing the uneaten rabbit legs with it, intending to feed them to its own cubs.
When we got close to the bald eagle's nest, we found a large bald eagle staying there.
The raven knew it could not defeat the sea eagle, so it folded its wings and landed on a nearby branch, observing secretly.
It had just landed when the female bald eagle, worried about its chicks, rushed back as fast as it could.
After seeing the scene in the nest clearly, the female bird became furious. She put down the fish in her mouth and started flapping her wings to attack the male bird.
"Oh hey! Oh hey!" I'll let you eat all by yourself! I'll let you eat all by yourself!
"Oh hey, oh hey!" He caught a fish but didn't come back for so long. Where did he go to fish? !
"Oh hey, oh hey!" He came back but didn't know how to feed his cubs. He just saw a bird hiding here eating!
"Oh my! Oh my!" If I had known you were like this, I shouldn't have dated a minor!
A Mackenzie wolf named Theresa, also of North America, resonated strongly with the female eagle.
The male bird is smaller than the female bird and much younger than its partner. The female bird fanned the male bird and made him scream "oyioyi"!
"oyi..." Wife, why did you hit me again?
"oyioyi?" What did I do wrong?
"quack!"
The raven reminded worriedly: You two can fight as much as you want, but don't step on my child.
“Oh hey!!!”
When the female eagle saw the raven, she became even angrier!
You stinky manbird, I told you eight hundred times to chase the ravens away, but what happened?!
The raven is just about to shit on your head!
"Oyi..."
The male eagle felt even more aggrieved!
As God knows, the raven appeared just one second before the female eagle returned to the nest, and he had no time to drive it away.
Besides, with two sea eagles in the nest at the same time, the raven had no chance to attack the baby. This was also what the female eagle taught her.
Seeing that the stinking male bird had the nerve to feel wronged, the female eagle was so angry that she kicked him out of the nest and turned around to feed her cubs.
The result was very awkward.
There are three chicks in the nest, and each one has a rounder belly than the other.
Especially the smallest one, you can see its bulging crop through the fur.
"oyi? oyi~"
The male eagle that was kicked out of the bird's nest turned around in the air and flew back.
He still didn't understand what he had done wrong, but it was very common for sea eagle couples to quarrel for no reason, even over a branch placed anywhere in the bird's nest.
At the end of the argument, the opinion of the stronger female eagle often prevails.
The male eagle, fearing that he would be kicked out, flapped his wings and flew back to his wife, humming and chirping to show his affection to her.
The female eagle realized that she had shot the wrong bird, so she picked up the fish she had just caught and shared it affectionately with her partner.
Yu Yiyun was caught off guard by a mouthful of bird food, and burped from the fullness.
.
For the next half month, this small family maintained the pattern of the male eagle going out to forage for food while the female eagle stayed in the nest to protect it.
Sometimes, the male eagle catches a fish that is too big and is dragged into the water. It has to dry its feathers before it can take off again.
If the female eagle cannot wait for the male eagle for a long time, she will fly away from the nest by herself to cook for her babies.
At this time, the ravens would sneak into the nest with a pika or hare in their mouths to feed their baby babies.
Once, the female eagle flew not far away and passed by a raven in the air.
The vigilant female eagle was worried about her young chicks, so she braked suddenly and returned to the nest. She found that the raven was feeding the third chick, who was originally the smallest in size, but could eat four or five times as much as other birds at every meal after birth, and had become a little fat chick.
Seeing the raven feeding its own chicks, the inexperienced bald eagle became confused.
What is this operation?
Fatten up the prey before eating it?
You should know that when a bald eagle cub is one month old, its weight can reach more than two kilograms, which is larger than an adult raven.
Instead of having the patience to raise sea eagles, it would be better to raise a horse or some wolves, fatten them up and use them as reserve food.
The female eagle remained highly alert. Not only did she not appreciate the gesture, but she thought that something was wrong.
She drove the raven away and stayed in the nest for the whole day to prevent it from stealing her house again.
——How could she have imagined that the demon that "must be a demon" would appear in her own nest.
The next day, the two parent birds left the nest, and the little fat bird made the "quack quack" signal again.
The raven heard the call and flew over happily with the prey in its mouth.
By now, the clever crow had already determined that the young bird was not of the same species as itself, based on its large size and the brown-black feathers that were gradually growing out.
So what? !
Feeding the baby cubs has become the thing that Crow looks forward to most every day.
Feeding the little fat bird until he becomes fatter and fatter, and watching him grow bigger than his peers, Ya Ya feels a great sense of accomplishment.
What's more, feeding the cubs can not only help them compete with the sea eagles in wits and courage, hone their hunting and flying skills, but also provide excitement for boring days.
Every time a raven feeds its cubs, it has a clear goal and feeds its own fat little chicks first.
If the other two birds compete with the fat little bird for food, they will be pecked on the head by the crows.
If the little fat bird is full and has some meat left, the other two can have some.
Yu Yiyun discovered a pattern and consciously left some food after each meal in order to cultivate an eating order in the bird's nest.
Soon, the older siblings developed a habit of waiting quietly for their younger brother to eat first.
As the female eagle was feeding, she discovered that this nest of cubs was different from the previous ones. There was rarely any fighting in the nest, and they lined up in an orderly manner to eat.
When it was about to be one month old, the fat and gluttonous little bird and its sister, who had the advantage of size, looked equally matched.
The older brother who hatched first looked a little smaller than them and had a bald head.
Bald Brother: ...Is there no bird to speak for me?
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