11 Mar 23 — time for a quickie?
“Time for a quickie?” I wish I could speak Peregrine… It feels like that’s what Azina told Tom this afternoon as within seconds he was off the eggs and joined her on the corner to mate 😉
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:
We are around three quarter of the way there now.
Not much to report, it’s been fairly routine. Except for one intruder I witnessed on Saturday evening but who was very quickly seen off by Azina. No messing about.
Tom stood his ground for once but was so surprised he had to check why Azina’d left 🤣 He came back to incubate very soon after.
The remaining egg got in a position today that allowed me to say that the egg that hatched yesterday was the one that had been trying since Thursday. Between the moment I first saw the pipping and hatching that’s 54 hours.
All are doing well. Tom got to do a little bit of brooding and some feeding but the majority of this has been done by Azina.
The chicks got 7 feeds today! A mix of Starling and Pigeon again.

In the following clip, Tom does his best feeding the chicks with what he’s got 🙂 The chicks were fed an hour before and were not very hungry.
The chicks’ third feed of the day. All the chicks got some food but one of them ended up with the first bulging crop I’ve seen so far!
Shots for today:
Pretty much the same as yesterday. A few more intruders. I happened to be walking through the cemetery this morning when I spotted Tom sparring with a female Peregrine (who may have been a juvenile – it all happened so fast). But it didn’t look overly aggressive, a bit playful. Then Azina came off the eggs, Tom went to incubate and the intruder took off East.
A clip for you: ‘If I ignore her maybe she’ll let me incubate a bit longer’… Tom ignored Azina for two minutes before she went into the nest box and then she had to beg him 😉
And a few shots from today.
The second egg laying video. Azina got up from the egg at 4.35, got into position at 4.38, pushes at 4.40/4.41 and at 4.42 she lifts up to let the egg to dry off. At 4.46 she turns a bit and starts settling down.
This makes it 60 hours and 10 minutes between the first two eggs.