Very quiet days again with little to report. Tom has done average days (3h40) to long (nearly 5 hours).
The coming night is going to be long for Azina as she refused Tom’s help twice this afternoon/early evening meaning that she’s been incubating since 2.50pm
A few shots from the last three days.
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:
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 one week birthday to the youngest chick! And I am pleased to say that it is thriving. And is a bit of a character, definitely holding its own against its bigger siblings.
It has just started to show pin feathers on its wings. And you can clearly see the difference 3 or 4 days make when you look at the older two.
Tom had taken a bit of a step back yesterday. He took two steps forward today 😉 He ended up feeding the chicks twice and doing a fair bit of brooding. Azina still did the majority of it but the chicks were left on their own a bit more again today.
Pigeon and starling was on the menu today. There were six feeds.
Some people are saying that they would usually bring Parakeets. But they wouldn’t, that’s always a bit later in the season (and the Peregrines are nesting earlier than they used to). The Peregrines mostly catch the Parakeets at dawn and dusk when they go from and to their roosts. As the Parakeets are nesting at the moment they’re staying put and the opportunities are fewer for the Peregrines.
To finish, this made me laugh when I saw it first. A game of ‘pass the morsel’ 😉
Shots for today:
Azina was eager for the food Tom brought her this evening. She really rushed towards Tom!A few intruders again today (one seemed to be a juvenile but it was from quite a distance) but that didn’t disturb Tom and Azina’s incubation routine much.
One clip where Tom has to do a lot of begging.
And a few shots from today.
Someone had something green for breakfast, lunch or dinner 😉
Azina cast a pellet this afternoon that’s a bit more colourful than the other ones you can see to her right.
And another picture in picture clip. This time Tom is incubating in the box and Azina pays a visit.
What a day!
I wasn’t really expecting the first chick to hatch today. I was expecting it to happen more like tomorrow or Thursday.
The day started a lot like yesterday with Tom doing a shift between 6.03 and 6.43. Then Azina took over. Tom brought her some food at 9.48 and she declined. She left for an unknown reason at 12.18 and an egg was pipped!
Tom took over incubation for 10 minutes. Azina returned and didn’t leave for the rest of the day. And it wasn’t for lack of trying on Tom’s part but she refused to budge every time he visited (usually with food).
When I looked back through the recordings, it’s possible that the egg was already pipped at 6.43 am but as it was on the side it’s hard to tell for sure. Likewise, when Azina took over from Tom, the pip was barely visible. It goes to show that luck has a big part in whether we get to see if an egg is pipped or not.
I was on a work call at 2.27 pm while keeping an eye on the camera and to my surprise Azina got up and revealed a wet chick!!! It must have just hatched around then.
An hour later another glimpse showed us a slightly fluffier chick and its head for the first time.
At 5.02 pm, Tom desperately wanted to incubate and see his first chick but Azina didn’t agree to let him…
At 6.47 this evening when Tom brought yet more food that Azina refused but that gave us our first glimpse of the fluffy chick.
Azina has been so tight on the eggs and chick that it’s impossible to say if there are any more pips.
Shots for today:
