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 chicks spent part of the night on the ledge, until it started raining and they took refuge in the box.
We went to ring the chicks this morning with the thought that we would assess Chick #3’s condition and act accordingly.
Chick #2 weighed in at 750g, which is a good weight for a young male. He was fitted with an orange ring with code P6T.
Chick #3 weighed in at 760g, which is very low for a young female. And she felt thin. There were plaques in her throat, which are signs of frounce, and explained why she had difficulty swallowing food. It was then decided to remove her from the ledge and to take her to Wildlife Aid (I had contacted them previously to check that we could).
I put her in my cat basket (the same I’ve used at FledgeWatch) covered with a blanket and drove her there. They quickly admitted her. I was quite relieved when they replied to my tweet and said they’d started her treatment. She is far from out of the woods yet but she’s been given a chance.
Back a the hospital P6T was in shock for a while but finally settled down around 12:30 and pancaked for a few hours. He woke up around 4:15pm, went out and found some food Azina had cached earlier to feed himself. He jumped on the wall at 4:48pm and has been there the whole time since apart from about a minute. It’s past 9pm as I’m typing this and he’s still there. He’s sat, flapped, preened on there. He’s walked it from one end to the other a couple of times. He even had dinner on it when at long last Azina brought him food and he had his first and only feed of the day. He seems very comfortable on it and has even sat on the outside edge.
I’m sure you’ll agree with me that P6T is turning into a stunning dark young Peregrine!
You can donate to Wildlife Aid to help with the cost of taking care of Chick #3.
Today’s shots:
We have now reached the half way point 🙂
Here are a few shots from the last three days including some of the quite dramatic skies we had on Friday when it was clear and sunny over the hospital but very dark and raining just North (I even heard some thunder over Kensington at that time). And two shots of the boat races as they pass Hammersmith Bridge as viewed from the Peregrine nest ledge.
Tom has been doing shorter days of incubation, a mixture again of him not turning up and Azina refusing him. She ended up doing a shift of around 20 hours overnight as she’d started it early afternoon and Tom didn’t relieve her until almost 11 this morning.
Azina was eager for the food Tom brought her this evening. She really rushed towards Tom!
And a few shots from today. I think there were a few intruders today but I only managed to confirm this once when I saw Tom chasing the bird over the hospital. Very aggressively too. Apart from that the pair have settled into incubation routine.
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.
Two things today: first the chicks spent most of the night on their own and second chick #1 stood up and did a few steps for the first time.
The chicks were also left on their own for most of the day though Azina did come and brood them from time to time.
There were seven feeds, usually not very long except for one that lasted 40 minutes. Only pigeon on the menu.
Maybe tomorrow chick #2 will also stand up? Maybe chick #1 will decide to explore a bit more?
Shots for today:
The first chick is two weeks old! How time flies! It, and its siblings, has had a great day of sleep and food 😉 With a little bit of preening and flapping, and some shuffling around.
It was really cold overnight and in the morning so the parents brooded the chicks continuously until lunchtime. Then they left them alone a bit.
I like the alternate positions in the above shot. They do that a lot.
There were seven feeds today. There could have been eight but the chicks were still so stuffed from their previous meal that they didn’t even get up 😉 Starling and pigeon on the menu once again. Tom fed one of the Starling heads to the chicks, so at least that’s one less of them 😂
In brief, it’s all good 🙂
It took Tom a lot of dancing around before Azina accepted his food offering in the clip below.
Tom got to feed a chick under Azina once again today 😉
Shots for today:
Look at the size of crops on some of the shots!
