10 Mar 23 — fun interlude
A bit wet and windy on the ledge today… Oops Tom!
The situation is pretty much unchanged. Chick #2 still looks 100% fine and Chick #3 doesn’t look neither worse nor better.
Chick #2 managed to jump on the wall three times, twice at the nestbox end and once at the opposite end.
Chick #3 has tried too seven times but didn’t succeed.
They didn’t get fed until very late. 6:20pm! Then they had another feed two hours later and ‘have gone to bed’ with full crops. Chick #2 was struggling to swallow the bigger pieces but managed the smaller ones. Strangely enough on day 33 last year Indy wasn’t fed until the afternoon too. But not quite that late.
Around 11 today I saw Tom attacking a Buzzard. This Buzzard wasn’t having it and was twisting talons up to par Tom’s attacks. It was pretty epic. This Buzzard called a few times during the attack, not a sound you hear much in Fulham! Usually Tom manages to get the Buzzards to lose a fair bit of height with his attacks but not this time. He must have judged after a few minutes that the bird had got the message, stopped and returned to the hospital while the Buzzard flew East. It was arriving from the North initially.
Today’s shots:
Something worked up the pair around 1pm today but I couldn’t see what it was… (first five shots)
And a few more shots from today.
Tom and Azina managed a quick mating on the ledge at lunchtime during one of today’s exchanges. 😉
I am posting only one video today. It’s a long one but has a bit of everything: chicks on their own, Tom feeding Azina, Tom feeding the chicks under Azina, Azina feeding the chicks, Azina brooding the chicks… And the little one went on a small adventure and Azina had to bring it back into the fold…
The two oldest chicks are getting to the age where they can thermoregulate and so the chicks may be left on their own for longer periods from now on. Tom hasn’t tried brooding them at all today. And they were left alone for half an hour early afternoon.
Tom came in early and waited for eight minutes before Azina moved on but it doesn’t look like they did much chatting this time.
The chicks had six feeds today, some lasting quite long. On the menu only pigeon today.
The youngest chick missed out on the second feed. I guess it wasn’t hungry. It caught up at the next one and got a private feed for a while by again separating itself from its siblings. It joined them back by itself this time.
Tom spent a fair bit of time perched by the ledge today.
Shots for today:
Chick #3 is two weeks old today!
Chick #2 didn’t follow in chick #1’s footsteps and hasn’t stood up today. Chick #1 is a bit more steady on its feet.
There were five feeds today, most of them quite long. Pigeon was on the menu for all of them.
Azina spent the night in the box with the chicks but she wasn’t brooding them. She brooded them a couple of times in the morning but on the whole the chicks were left on their own for most of the day. Except for feeds (which amounted to 2 1/2 hours in total)
To finish, it can happen to the best of them! Azina has an off moment this morning…
Shots for today: