15 Apr 23 — Third chick hatches
The third chick hatched around 11.45 a.m. and it was a bit of a rough start… It was still curled up from being in the egg when revealed.
I will post all the photos and write up tomorrow.
Day 8
Happy 1 week birthday to the middle chick!
The oldest chick is showing pin feathers on its wings 🙂

Another good day for the chicks with plenty of food, plenty of sleep and brooding from Mum and Dad.

Tom paid a brief visit at 2 am! And then a longer one at 5.08 where he had another one of those long chats with Azina. These two are just so sweet!
There have been seven feeds today, at 5.27am, 7.20am (Tom), 10.51am, 1.09pm, 4.30pm, 6.12pm and 7.32pm (short, chicks were still full).
Tom got to feed the chicks this morning.

Shots for today:
Happy 4 weeks birthday to Chick #1!
I forgot to mention yesterday that it was starting to mantle prey after grabbing it from a parent. It’s done it again twice today. 😉

It’s also been ‘weird’ and sleeping sitting up on its own on the ledge while its siblings were pancaked in the nest box. I don’t remember a chick doing that before.

It rained all night but the day was dry so they went out to exercise a few times but they spent most of their time inside.

They were fed five times, four times by Azina and once by Tom. All feeds lasted around 25 minutes and all feeds consisted of pigeon.
Chick #3 has now caught up with its siblings in size; no more tiny one in the middle. And it looks like it’s growing bigger, bigger than Chick #1 for sure. It could be all the down giving a false impression but probably not…

The chicks will be ringed on Friday morning.
Shots for today:
I was starting to think that it was all about Chicks #1 and #3 the last few days but today Chick #2 stole the show by being the first one to go explore the paddling pool. On its four weeks birthday too 🙂

One of my favourite moments when the chicks discover the pool. It didn’t go as far as having a bath but it seemed to be enjoying itself. Check the clip if you haven’t already.
The rest of the day is about the same as the last few. Sleep, eat, flap, preen, sleep, flap, sleep, eat… 😉

There were four feeds, all given by Azina, all of pigeon.

There was very heavy rain around 6pm. The shot below is of the three chicks huddled close together in the corner. It must have been scary with the noise on the roof of the box…

About half an hour before that I heard Tom alarm calling. I checked at my window and saw him rushing to gain height over my street. I went out and by then he’d gone beyond the cemetery and was over Kensington dive bombing a Buzzard.
A funny clip to finish:
Shots for today:
We still have two chicks and two eggs. It is probably too late now for the egg that was hatching yesterday. But it could still happen for the other egg. The problem is that the chicks are all over the eggs making it very difficult to spot signs of hatching. There was a pip on one of the eggs on the feed video below but we can’t say if it was new or not.
In the meantime we have two healthy chicks. And I’m going to stick my neck out, I am pretty sure we have one boy and one girl (with the boy being the first one to hatch). But time with tell.

They were fed six times today, pigeon every time.

Tom got to spend a fair bit of time with them. But Azina is still doing the vast majority of the brooding.
I wish they removed that carcasse…

Shots for today:
Rainy day… And we got a repeat of Wednesday with few exchanges and long shifts with Azina doing one of six hours and Tom over three hours so he was back to over five hours in total. No sign of intruders 🙂