8 Mar 23 — The two eggs in colour
The two eggs in glorious colour a few minutes ago. The first egg is on the right and the second one on the left.
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2 May 23 — Day 21
Today is Chick #1’s 3 weeks birthday and to celebrate it went on a little trip. That’s one day earlier than Indy last year and three days earlier than Walnut in 2021.
Chick #1 on its first excursion
Tom and Azina spent a lot of time perched by the side of the ledge today, either separately or together. In the morning Azina spent a lot of time disturbing the chicks’ sleep by pottering in the nest box for nothing in particular.
Tom and Azina side by side
Again the chicks were fed to the brim an endless supply of pigeons. The last meal lasted 40 minutes with the first 10 minutes done by Tom. They fell in a food coma immediately.
Tom feeds the chicks As you can see on its excursion clip Chick #1 is now very steady on its feet and will now stand during feeds. Chick #2 is still quite reluctant.
Short clip of the chicks playing.
Playing chicks Shots for today:
11 Apr 23 — Day I-33 — First chick!
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!
Pip visible on one of the eggs 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.
First glimpse of a wet chick at 2.27 pm An hour later another glimpse showed us a slightly fluffier chick and its head for the first time.
First glimpse of the chick’s head at 3.25 pm 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.
Fluffy chick under Mum 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:
3 Apr 23 — Days I-23 to I-25
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.
8 May 23 — Day 27
The chicks have been in and out of the box a lot today but did all their sleeping inside. Chick #1 has slept most of the day sitting up while the others were pancaked.
Chick #1 sleeping sitting up while the others are pancaked There were 5 feeds and all of them were pigeon. Tom did one of them and Azina the others. He would have done an other but the chicks were still full from their previous one.
Azina feeding the chicks Two short clips with Chicks #1 and 2 flapping:
There was a feed Live on facebook which you can watch using this link.
Shots for today:
21 Apr 23 — Day 10
The two oldest chicks are getting to the age where they can thermoregulate and so the chicks may be left on their own for longer periods from now on. Tom hasn’t tried brooding them at all today. And they were left alone for half an hour early afternoon.
Tom came in early and waited for eight minutes before Azina moved on but it doesn’t look like they did much chatting this time.
Tom standing waiting for Azina to move (she did after eight minutes) The chicks had six feeds today, some lasting quite long. On the menu only pigeon today.
The youngest chick missed out on the second feed. I guess it wasn’t hungry. It caught up at the next one and got a private feed for a while by again separating itself from its siblings. It joined them back by itself this time.
Azina feeding the chicks Tom spent a fair bit of time perched by the ledge today.
Tom by the ledge. He’s put his tutu on 😉 Shots for today:
