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Down under, in Sydney, Australia, both sea eaglets are born!! The Birds Australia Discovery Centre says:

Recent Events

15/08/11 SECOND HATCH: The second eaglet (S2) hatched on Monday 15th August at 1:45pm local time Australia (we are UTC+10 hours) after pipping at 9:45am.

14/08/11 FIRST HATCH: Pop the Champagne! The first eaglet (S1) hatched on Sunday 14th August at 8:55am local time Australia after pipping at 3:00pm on the 13th.

07/07/11 SECOND EGG: The second egg was laid on Thursday 7th July at 6:00pm local time Australia. Mum is staying very close to the eggs. The temperature was down to about 4C (39F) this morning.

04/07/11 FIRST EGG: Start the fireworks!!! At approximately 5:40pm on Monday 4th July the first egg was laid. The female had been sat in the nest since 5:15pm. She stood up a few times where we could see that, initially, the nest was empty. She then stood up at 5:40pm and there it was! Keep a close eye on what happens during the night as nobody has ever observed WBSEs on the nest at night before!
Some Basic Information On The Sea-Eagles & Sea-EagleCAM

Sea-EagleCAM has set up a high definition video camera monitoring the local White-bellied Sea-Eagles’ nest, 15 metres (50 feet) above the ground, in a eucalyptus tree within a protected nature reserve of Sydney Olympic Park, Australia (see Channel 7 News Story from August 2010). The video is fed back to the Birds Australia Discovery Centre at Olympic Park via an optical fibre cable giving a high definition video display to visitors as well as the video stream to Ustream.

OMG. Wow! What a cat!! That rocks!!

It scared me, watching the video, though. And annoyed me that the people did not protect the cat!! They should have scared away the alligators with sticks, rocks, a gun or something! Or scared away the cats with rocks or sticks! And what the heck are the people doing so close to the alligators, anyway!!

HT: Jimi E via John T

A cat and a crow as friends! Wow! Amazing! Wallace and Ann Collito were fortunate to see and experience what they did!!

I don’t know what the latest news is, but, in 2008, Linda Faber wrote a story, “KITTY CORNER: Update on an unlikely friendship” (The Sun Chronicle (34 South Main St., Attleboro, MA),
Monday, July 21, 2008 2:38 AM EDT), talking about the animals. Linda wrote:

In August 1999, Wallace and Ann Collito’s home in North Attleboro was buzzing with activity. It was the place to be! The streets were full of curious neighbors, camera crews and photographers.

So, what was all the hoopla about, you ask? People were there to witness the unthinkable, something that defied all the laws of nature: A kitten and a crow engaged in a most unusual nurturing relationship. It’s a known fact that cats & birds are arch enemies.

I first witnessed the unlikely twosome on YouTube about six months ago and simply could not believe what I was seeing. You can see for yourself by going to YouTube.com and typing in “crow & kitten are friends.” Obviously others were amazed by what they saw as the video has had 4,634,309 visitors to date and has a five star rating. More pictures can be seen at www.earthlings.org/kin/kinship.html. The story made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but left me wondering whatever became of the kitten and the crow. It was now nine years later and I just had to find out.

©Copyright 2010

Read the rest! Nice story, good article.

You can see Cassie and Moses also in a video clip on the National Geographic‘s Unlikely Animal Friends.

Update (7-28-11; 5:25 PM)!! Being *very* interested in Cassie’s fate and hoping all was well, I emailed Linda Faber, and — thank goodness, even though the email address I found might have been years out of date — got a response! Linda said I could publish her letter. She said:

Hi Michael,

You’ll be happy to know that Cassie returned home on 8/14/08 unscathed. She was gone for 3 1/2 months.  Mr. Collito spotted her, put food out on his side deck, she came right up to the door, ate it and walked in the house like she had never left.

They spend their winters in Florida visiting Mr. Collito’s son and return to N. Attleboro in the spring.  They are both doing well.

Last summer, Mr. Collito built a screened in porch for Cassie and she loves it.  She can now feel like she’s outside without ever getting lost again.

You can rest easy knowing that the story had a happy ending.

Linda Faber
Kitty Corner/The Sun Chronicle

What a relief to hear that, after losing Cassie for a while, Mr. Wallace Collito and Cassie were reunited!! Thank goodness! But poor Moses!!   And I hope it did not hurt Cassie too much, losing Moses!!

I was going to wait until tomorrow to put up this post, but, at Linda’s request, I put it up today. She wanted it today, and, since I owe her big time for telling me about Cassie’s fate — done!

Watch Fum & Gebra playing! Amazing! There is even a Website for them!

Sea eagles with eggs!! Nice!! The site says that two eggs were laid by this pair of eagles: one egg on July 4th and the other on July 7th. They also say:

The White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) is the second largest bird of prey in Australia with a wing span of 1.8-2.2 metres (6-7 feet). It measures 75-85cm (30-33 inches) in length and can weigh up to 4.2kg (9 pounds), the female being larger and heavier than the male. Sea-eagles are found around the coast and along the major rivers of mainland Australia and Tasmania, New Guinea, South East Asia and as far west as the coast of India.

Our eagles started to build a new nest in May after the tree in which they had their old nest for several years fell down in February (see Channel 7 News Story from February 2011). They usually lay two eggs at the end of June or early July and incubate them for forty days before hatching in early August. The young remain on the nest for approximately three months until they are ready to fly at the beginning of November. They then spend most of their time away from the nest but, if the adults are still bringing in food, they may occasionally be seen at the nest up until January the following year. The young birds may take up to six years to reach maturity, gradually losing their brown juvenile plumage and gaining the characteristic grey and white plumage of the adults. Sea-eagles may live for up to 30 years. Their diet is mainly fish but also includes birds, reptiles, mammals and carrion. Our eagles take fish from the nearby Parramatta River and surrounding wetlands of Olympic Park but when the eaglets are approximately 1-2 months old, a large part of their diet is made up of Silver Gulls caught from a small breeding colony on the wrecks in Homebush Bay.

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