Diary of a Magpie Lark nest

A bright sunny morning this morning and to my surprise the Magpie Larks have commenced building a new nest in exactly the same site as the old one.
Preening Magpie Lark at the nest site

Today we returned from holidays. It was a wet and windy day and it had been raining on and off for most of the day. When I got home I was pleased to see the Magpie Larks still sitting on the nest sheltering the nest with their wings. There was still no sign of the nestlings but I assumed they were there sheltering under their parents wings.

I think the chicks have hatched today.

I noticed that when one of the adults would fly to the nest to take over nesting duty that the bird bought a small parcel of food in its beak. When arriving at the nest for change over the sitting bird would take off and the bird arriving either delivered a small parcel of food into the nest or pecked around in the nest as if to clean or arrange the nesting material. This bird would sit on the nest for a short while until its partner arrived to take over, repeating the process.

At this stage the chicks are too small to see or hear in the nest.

The magpie larks have been sitting on the nest continuously since Monday. When I have been able to watch them during the day they make regular change overs with both birds seeming to share the incubation duties equally. When change over occurs the nesting bird will signal time for a change over by raising its wings and calling, shortly afterwards its mate will fly up to the nest and some times give the nesting bird a little shove with its beak as if to say 'move off'. Once the nest has been vacated the other bird does a little rearranging of the eggs, fluffs up its feathers and then nestles into the nest.
Australian Hobby
Around 12.30pm today I heard some excited bird chitterings outside the window, I quickly looked out to see the two Australian Hobbies, that had visited eleven days ago, in the tree. The hobbies continued to visit the tree throughout the day showing interest in the old raven nest with both of them taking turns to sit in the nest for a few minutes at a time. They also spent time sitting in the tree, metres above the magpie lark nest, just resting and preening.

When the hobbies first turned up the male magpie lark was just sitting tight in his nest and I wondered at which point he would give up the nest to flee for his own safety, however he continued to sit on the nest despite looking a little anxious and keeping a close eye on the hobbies.

After a while I heard both magpie larks calling and looked out to see the nest empty and unprotected. I briefly wondered why until I saw the larks dive bombing a hobby attempting to annoy it into flying from the tree. The hobby put up with this behavior for a few minutes until its mate swooped down from the sky towards the attacking Magpie Larks. A short chase took place fortunately the Magpie Larks escaped and after 30 minutes or so of the Magpie Larks harassing the hobbies things settled down and the the larks went back to looking after the nest.

A little later a pair of Rainbow Lorikeets (which I suspect have a nesting hollow in one of the trees in the row of eucalypts in the park) discovered the bird eating neighbors and proceeded to squawk at one of the hobbies sitting lower in the tree. This in turn upset the Magpie Larks who who again flew up to harass one of the hobbies. After about 5 minutes of this the hobbies seemed to have had enough and decided to pursue the Magpie larks again. With such seemingly reckless behavior by the Magpie larks I was beginning to wonder how long the Magpie Larks would be around for. I'm also worried about the length of time the Magpie Larks are leaving the nest unattended to harass the hobbies.

The hobbies left the tree at around 6pm and didn't return for the remainder of the day. I'm assuming they have gone to their roost tree for the night.