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 😉
I was out for most of the day but took my tablet to do some spot checks (which turned out easier said than done, but it worked which was the main thing). Azina waited until one minute before I was due to leave to finally get up and reveal that there were still two eggs and two chicks.

A check early afternoon gave me a hint that there may be a third chick but I lost signal and it’s not until later in the afternoon that I was finally able to confirm it and put the word out.
If you look closely at the shot above, taken at 11am, it looks like pipping on the egg on the left.
At 11:46, Azina turns and walks on the chick that’s just hatched. It’s still curled up from being in the egg! That is quite a rough start…

An hour later Azina gives us another glimpse. The chick has dried up a little.

Then, two and a half hours after it’s hatched, we get to see a fully fluffy chick at the second feed of the day. It’s the one at the back. It doesn’t get fed then but that is not a problem, freshly hatched Peregrine chicks usually don’t eat for many hours.

It didn’t have to wait too long in the end as it got its first bits of food at the next feed.

By then I don’t know if this chick was the one that had been trying to hatch since Thursday…
The chicks got 4 feeds, a mix of Pigeon and Starling.
Shots for today:
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.
Around 4pm Tom brought in a Collared Dove. He quickly took it away since Azina wasn’t interested in grabbing it.
This is the first time I record one as prey here. I have not seen one in Fulham (or Hammersmith) yet. I suspect he may have caught it in Barnes, and even there I don’t know that they are that common.

No big outing today. Chick #2 went out for five minutes on its own and Chick #3 was back in as soon as it was out.

The chicks got to taste Parakeet for the first time this evening and they’d also had Starling on top of the usual Pigeon so a bit more variety on the menu today. Azina must have caught that Parakeet as it looked quite fresh and Tom had been sitting on or by the ledge for over an hour when she arrived with it.

There were only five feeds today but the chicks were very full at the end of each of them.
Chick #2 is getting a bit even more steady on its feet and Chick #3 is making more effort. Chick #1 has reached the pincushion back stage, making it quite easy to recognise it from its siblings today.

When it was sitting next to Chick #3 on the porch at one point the difference 4 days make was quite striking when looking at the cheek patch and around the eye.

Chick #3 cast a pellet on the back of Chick #2 this morning.
Shots for today:
Quiet days. Tom did a lot less incubating yesterday (a mixture of him not turning up and Azina saying no) and Azina ended up doing nearly 16hrs on the trot overnight.
He did an average day today (3hr40) over three shifts. He also brought some pigeon but Azina wasn’t interested then.
The last shot is of Tom on the lookout on a crane this evening. We could hear Azina calling to him but I don’t think he could. He eventually turned up to relieve her a while later.
Before this we saw him very nearly catch a hospital pigeon (there was contact) he’d flushed.
A few shots from yesterday and today.