THIS “SUMMER” HAS certainly been a big contrast to last. With 2022 being hot and dry, I found the aviary birds had given up on breeding early on in the summer. This year, I'm finding myself rushing outside to place the winter plastic sheeting on the aviaries to give the recently fledged chicks a bit more of a chance to be sheltered from the wind and rain.
What has helped immensely is that the installation of the plastic sheeting can be done in just a few steps, so it can be put up at a minute's notice. However,to the elements due to exposure overnight or the parents abandoning some of the younger chicks to focus their efforts on the stronger, older ones. This has been a hard reality to absorb, as it's our intention to do the best for the birds, but without intervention resulting in hand-rearing there isn't much we can do with the unpredictable weather conditions.
