8 Mar 23 — lunchtime quickie
Tom and Azina managed a quick mating on the ledge at lunchtime during one of today’s exchanges. 😉
Tom stood his ground for once but was so surprised he had to check why Azina’d left 🤣 He came back to incubate very soon after.
It’s all going well. The chicks are getting plenty of food. And I know some of you are concerned about the smallest chick. Don’t worry! It’s getting plenty of food, just as much as its siblings. If you’ve watched the second Live on Facebook you’ll have seen all three of them full to bursting after what was their eighth feed of the day!
But I think this chick is going to be trouble. It wandered away during one of the feeds and Azina had to grab it to bring it back with the others.
They managed to surprise me with another first: Tom feeding the chicks while they were under Azina. Very interesting interactions this year.
As mentioned above, the chicks had eight feeds today. Again it was a mix of starling and pigeon.
Shots for today:
Only five feeds today but they’ve all been long at around 30 minutes, except for breakfast, and the chicks were very full at the end of all of them. Only Pigeon on the menu.
Often feeds were the occasion for the chicks to practise their wing flapping, even the youngest one.
Azina brooded the chicks for most of the morning but left them on their own a bit more this afternoon.
Watch Azina go after a pigeon from the ledge. She came back empty taloned a minute later but look at that acceleration!
Shots for today:
I have put the #FledgeWatch notices up around the hospital this morning. P6T is in the second shot, he was preening on the left hand side corner of the ledge.
I really hope there won’t be any accident during the weekend because I have to go away. I will be keeping an eye on the cameras when I can. I have asked some friends and neighbours to keep watch and help to rescue P6T if necessary.
I will start Fledge Watch on Monday morning.
Anyone is welcome to come and help watch, keep me company or relieve me for a while. I hope he fledges on Tuesday or Wednesday but, with young Peregrines, you really can’t tell!
Indy had her accident on Day 40 (that’s Monday for P6T) but really didn’t fledge until 4 days later, Walnut fledged on Day 43 (Thursday), Jack fledged on Day 44 (Friday).
He again spent the night out on the wall, in the same spot at the night before. He hasn’t been in the box since Monday unless going after a parent. Which has given Tom the opportunity to go and do a bit of housekeeping in there. It’s needed!
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!
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:
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