SPOTTING DOOBREYS
Edward Spinks is a keen bird watcher, so last week he was particularly excited to discover that a pair of Lesser Wattled Doobreys are nesting in the tree at the back of his garden. He has set up a hide in his back room, and every evening when he returns from work he sits down to study the birds. He has observed that the Doobreys have young chicks, and in order to feed them, the male and female are on a non-stop food search. The two parents work separately, flying off over the hedge, returning about fifteen minutes later with grub (literally) and then within seconds flying off again on their next search. But there is something that Edward cannot explain. His first sighting of a bird every day is sometimes the male and sometimes the female. But the first sighting has always been of it flying back to the nest, rather than leaving the nest. Even when he gets home early, he still doesn’t see a Doobrey leave the nest until he has seen one fly back. Can you think of the most likely explanation for this interesting ornithological phenomenon?