25 Mar 23 — Begging

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:

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:

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: