Chicks Against The Odds

Last week, we left Dutch softbill maestro LOU MEGENS with two differently aged clutches under a single hen bee-eater. Here’s what happened next, earlier this year

- Lou Megens

ALL I could do was wait for three weeks of incubation after the fourth egg of the first clutch and then check regularly afterward. I enriched the food with small and medium-sized crickets and frozen pinkies. I also got a large bucket of stable manure which I threw on the ground to attract flies. With the same purpose, I deposited dead mice, fish and meat waste, and fruit scraps in a bucket that I covered with mesh. To be sure of enough flies, I bought fresh maggots that I threw into the bucket. What people will do to achieve success! But the flies arrived quickly – lots of them – so the bee-eaters had a feast.

After waiting for three-and-a-half weeks, I couldn’t hold back my curiosity and had to look. There should already be chicks, or dead-in-shell. I’d had some disturbing messages from birdkeepers who told me that breeding in a nest-box would not be possible due to too low humidity and too high temperature. Even with fertilized eggs, the chicks would die prematurely, they advised. When I took the lid off the box, the brooding bee-eater was so shocked that it took off and flew away. Unfortunately, one egg was damaged by this. However, a quick check showed me that all (seven!) eggs (of probably two females) seemed to be fertile.