Silver-scaled seeker

Some think that they come from one of the moons because they live mainly under the moonlight. I think they are just annoying birds that have a knack of stealing anything infused with magic.

— A mage who's tired of being mugged by the seekers

The Silver-scaled seeker are medium sized birds that live in northeast forests in Amex. They are known for their ability of recognizing items infused with magic and their tendency of stealing the small ones. They are the cousins of the Golden seekers but their comportment are contrasting.

Basic Information

Anatomy

These birds have a shiny black plumage, a silver coloured beak, eyes, and legs, and small silver scales following the top of their wings, on the shoulder blades. They have big wings and a long and wide tail. The silver details in their bodies shine under the moonlight of the Arhar moon and tend to softly shine on their own when getting closer to magic sources.

There is no visible sexual dimorphism, and the hatchlings have grey plumage before growing their mature plumage. The beak, eyes, and legs turning silver also mark the bird's reach of sexual maturity.

Growth stages

• Hatchling - Featherless, eyes closed and fully unprotected. They require constant help from the parents as they cannot even regulate their temperature, needing the parents for external heat at all times.


• Nestling - Around 10 days after hatching. They start growing their grey feathers and their eyes open, showing a soft blue colour.


• Fledgling - 6 to 8 weeks after hatching. They have grown all their plumage and it has a dull grey colour. They do not depend on their parents anymore for heating and can start eating food on their own. They will start learning to fly.


• Juvenile - 4 to 5 months after hatchling. They are fully independent and are starting to moult their plumage to show their black adult plumage. They are able to fly and know how to hunt. Their beak and legs are still pink and their eyes blue.


• Adult - 1 year after hatchling. Their eyes turn silver, and so does the legs and beak. They reach sexual maturity. They still stay with the parents for a couple of years before leaving to live on their own.

Lifespan

10 - 12 years

Average Weight

]320 - 620 g

Average Length

40 - 53 cm

Wingspan

85 - 100 cm

Bird perching on groun by Sergio Ibannez

Reproduction & Social

The Silver-scaled mate for life. Once they become adults, they search for a partner. Both birds have to agree for them to become mates for life. The male tends to search for shiny females while females search for males that bring rarer magical items or species.

Once both are ready to mate, they will build a bulky and spiky nest together. These are usually found in trees but are sometimes found in the top of high dense bushes. The female will lay between 3 and 6 eggs that both parents will take turns incubating them for three weeks. After the eggs are hatched, the parents still take turns between taking care of the hatchlings and hunting for food.

The seekers are social creatures, living close to their family for half their lives. They can live up to 15 individuals close together. They all tend to be siblings from different years hatchings, as adult seekers leave their parents usually at age 3 or 4. It is known that, even if they leave to mate somewhere else, they visit the parents from time to time.

While being social creatures, they tend to avoid Ithakill. Attempts to approach the seekers rarely success and whenever one seeker gets captured, they spend all their energy trying to escape. Even though the seekers display such aversion to Ithakill, this doesn't stop them from stealing small magical items that they can carry, making them to be despised by mages.

Domestication

There have been many attempts at domesticating the seekers. They are great magical detectors, which made mages want to have them as their own detectors. They would also be extremely useful for detecting magic (especially for traps) when exploring old ruins.

All attempts at domestication have resulted in failures, the seekers either escaped or made themselves so useful that they were either killed or released back to nature. It seems that this aversion towards the Ithakill isn't taught, as seekers raised in captivity have shown the aversion.

Some people consider that the aversion the seekers display means that Ithakill beings are corrupted magical beings, but this is some rare rumours that are barely known.

Evergreen trees covered with snow by Niklas Hamann