Shama pair's 7th clutch update

It's been awhile since I update this blog. Fifth batch is a total loss. 2 out of 4 eggs hatched but the parents throw them out on the 4th day. I think the reason is part of my mistake to leave 2 unhatched eggs still inside the nest with 2 hatched babies. I think the parents throw those two babies out to continue to incubate the remain eggs per their instinct. Sixth batch has 4 eggs but only one hatched and the remain three eggs has chick develop inside but could not hatch. I don't know what is the reason for this but I assume part of it is the egg laied in late season which didn't have enough substance to develop a strong baby or partly due to super hot weather during those incubation time.

Here is a little clip of 7th batch of 08 season. Eleven days and no hatch yet so far. Hope I can some babies out of this batch.

Shama pair's 4th clutch of the 2009 season hatched

Three eggs hatched on June 16th, and the fourth one hatched the next day. I'll try to document the growing process of these babies from the time they hatch until they fled their nest 12 days later. I will only post some of the hightlight of the day and will try as much as I can to document their growing process so we can learn and understand more on the bird's behavior.

First day of hatching:


Second day of hatching part 1:


Second day of hatching part 2:


Third day of hatching: Too lazy to do it! :D

Fourth day of hatching part 1:


Fourth day of hatching part 2:

22 days old baby white rumped shama (chich choe lua)

Two out of the three babies. Pictures were taken by camera phone so the quality is not so good.

Shama pair's 4th clutch of the 2009 season

Like clock work, 3rd day of the month is the day the female shama laid egg for the last 4 times in this 2009 season. Early morning of June 3rd, one egg appears in the nest. Hopefully this clutch doesn't have the issue like the last two clutch of early incubation on the 2nd day by the femal; thus resulting two out of five babies died in the first 3 days due to too much different in size.

Daily feeding schedule include one big feeding of crickets and small roaches early in the morning before I go to work. In the afternoon, another big feeding same as in the morning but also add some mealworms and/or giant mealworms. Liquid multivitamin and liquid vitamin B complex is mixed with crickets one feeding per every other day. During the first twelve days period before the chicks leave the nest, I usually also feed guppies 3 times, small earthworms 2-3 times (dig from my backyard) with the hope that those food can bring enough level of calcium and protein for the chicks need to grow without any issue of weak or deform leg/wing. After the chicks left the nest, I only feed guppies and small earthworms once a week or so until they can eat for themself then I feed like once every two weeks or once per month depend on whenever I like to go out to buy some guppies.

Water is provided new daily. Calcium powder is mixed with water every other day and using the concentration from manufacturing instruction. On the other day, I only provide regular drinking water. Calcium is provided during the period of egg laying and about 2-3 days before and after the event.

Clip of the female inspect the nest to prepare for laying egg:





Clip of the female lays her first egg of this 4th clutch:

3rd shama batch left the nest and 1st batch starts to molt?

After 12 days of incubation, like all previous batches, the 3rd batch babies left the nest on Friday 5/29/09. All three shama babies are very healthy without any defect.

On the other hand, I notice that the male from 1st batch has molt couple wingfeathers few days ago but haven't see any additional feather since. Also, the female from the 1st batch has one of her primary tail feather drop on Sunday 5/31/09. Measure the primary tail feather from tip to end is 3.5in or close to 9cm.

Shama 3rd clutch hatch today

Recap: 1st egg laid on 05/04/09. Second and third egg laid on May 5th and 6th. The female skipped one day and laid the fourth and final fifth egg on May 8th and 9th. She started to incubate eggs at night on 2nd egg.

Update:
Around 11AM on Sunday 05/17/09, two out of the five eggs hatched.
Early morning of Monday around 6:30AM, the third egg hatched.
Afternoon on Tuesday around 5:00PM, the fourth egg hatched.
Looks like that the last 2 babies died on Thursday afternoon due to too small in size compare to the other 3 chicks which is older by 2 days.

Shama pair with 3rd clutch of 2009

Again, 5 days after the second clutch babies left the nest, the female starts to lay egg on 05/04/09. The femals also starts to incubate at night on her 2nd egg. First 3 eggs are laid everyday in the late morning; however, the 4th eggs are laid on 05/08/09 at very early in the morning (around 6:30AM). On this 3rd clutch, the female skips one day after the 3rd egg are laid and resume laying egg again on the 5th day. This maybe is the result of not enough calcium in her system? or with some other reason that I can't explain. Hopefully all the eggs will hatch.

This is the clip of possible the female in the process of laying eggs:




Update on 05/09/09: The female shama laid another eggs bring the total of eggs in this 3rd clutch to 5 eggs in 6 days.

Courtship and Mating of white-rumped shama

Just two days after the babies left the nest, what it looks like is the male tries to court the female and attemp to mate.







The next day, I move the camera from the nest to one of the conner of the aviary to try to capture the courtship:






Four day after the babies left the nest, first view of the acutal matting is below. They mated twice today, once at around 3:30pm and another time at around 6pm

Mother shama works hard to feed her babies

At this time of year, sunrise is at around 6:00AM, but the male starts to sing at around 5:30AM. First feeding is around 6:00AM. Within first hour of feeding, the mother shama feeds her 3 chicks total 12 times with 14 crickets! That's hard work which explains why lots of of handraise babies died while in the care of human.

Part#1:


Part#2:

Update pics of the first batch 42 days old

Sad news: one baby shama die

One of the five baby shama died on Monday due to record heat of 104F or 40.5C for the last two days. This one is the smallest of those five which survive less than two day. The baby is barely 4cm long. The rest of the clutch is doing fine.

Update 04/23/09: Another baby found dead after I come home from work. This one is next to the weekest one which probably hatched on afternoon of Sunday 04/19/09. The clip shows the female discarded the dead one around 08:11AM. The first baby shama dead discarded by the male. My theory is because 5 eggs hatched in the spand of 3 days which enough size different between the first day hatch and the last day thus be older one is bigger and stronger sho they push or sit one the weeker one.

Female shama pushed her mate out of the nest so she can incubate her eggs! :)

The female comes out to eat, drink, and take a bath around noon like every other day and she takes a little break from incubation job. This time, the male shama comes in the nest and incubate for the total of little over 9 min. The female can't wait any longer to incubate so she jump in the nest while the male still sitting inside and tries pushing him out. This is the 6th day of incubation period.

Is male shama incubate his eggs?

This is the question that seems no one can give a definitive answer. With the newly camera install on the second clutch, I were able to observe the male jump into the nest and incubate the eggs. Even with only few minutes long, the male shama, at least in this case, does incubate his eggs when his mate when out to eat and/or take a bath.
The clip below is only two and a half minutes long due to I cut most part of non-active clip to save time watching, but if you notice the time, the male incubates for little over 6 min long.

Total of 5 eggs on second clutch.

On April 8th 2009, total of 5 eggs were laid and begin incubated by the female. All the babies in the first clutch are still stay with their parents until they can eat by themselves. The father is the one mostly feed his babies with occasionally the mom feeds her babies when she was out to eat and bath.

Video clip female shama incubate eggs

Today, Sunday April 5, 2009, there are two eggs in the nest which the female shama laid since Saturday. So approximate 5 days when the babies left the nest, or about 17 days when the first clutch hatch, or about 28 days when the female start incubate the first clutch, the female is ready to lay the second clutch.
This clip is only 20 second long but total time incubate is approx. 20 mins.

6 days after left the nest

Update on those babies after 6 day left the nest or 18 days old after hatched.

Four babies shama

After 12 days of incubation, there are four babies left the nest on March 28th, 2009. Looks like that there will 2 male and 2 female due to different intensity of feather color. Both parents are very protect their young. The two presume to be male almost make constant chip sound. It seems that both parents try to feed the young almost constantly to the point that sometimes the young still full that they didn't want to eat. The father when ever he brings food to his young, he pecks at the side of baby's beak to stimulate the baby open its beak or peck on the head. All four babies seem healthy and strong.

The father carries waste sack to dispose:

Babies:

Eggs hatched

After many days of waiting and constantly feed them plenty of insects, on Tuesday morning March 17, 2009, discover 4 empty egg shells on the floor of the aviary. 3 empty egg shells are from the bottom end part of the egg (the pointy side) and 1 empty egg shell is from the top round part. So I can conclude at least 3 eggs hatched. Few hours later in the morning, observe the father catch small insect and fly to the nest, possible feeding the babies. Looks like that the female incubated for 11 days. Outside temperature during the incubation time is pretty low with the high around 75F, and low around 50F. Here are the pics of empty egg shells. The one in the aviary is too far for me to reach in and take it out.