8 Mar 23 — Tom eats in the box
Recently Tom has taken to offer food to Azina in the nest box, this time he decided to eat it on the spot when she refused. I don’t think she was too impressed 😉
“Eh! Wait! You were meant to beg for a bit longer!” 😉
Two quiet days but very different. Yesterday Tom did little incubation (just under two hours). Today he did the most he’s done in a day so far this year with over five hours in two shifts. Today Azina did her longest day shift with seven hours on the trot.
About two thirds of the way through now…
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:
Another quiet day apart from the moment Azina spotted something high up (first two shots) and went after it. It was so high up I never managed to spot it and lost Azina as she was just a teeny dot on her way after it. This was just before lunchtime and it’s only then that Tom came for his first shift
I didn’t do an update yesterday as it had been a very quiet day. So was today thankfully 🙂 The pair has really settled into the routine. Tom has ended up doing a bit over four hours each day which is a bit over his average last year.
A clip from today: Tom had barely settled on the eggs when Azina came back and demanded to incubate again. Poor Tom! It’s not like she’d been incubating for over 12 hours. 😉 But his following shift two hours later ended up being nearly three hours long. Happy Tom! 😂
And a few shots from yesterday and today.
It is getting difficult to distinguish between chicks #1 and #2.

Chick #2 has started standing up today but not much. Chick #1 has got better.
Most of the day has been spent sleeping, as usual. No brooding at all today except for 30 seconds. Azina spent some time in the box overnight but didn’t brood them.

There were six feeds today, of varying lengths, but no varying menu. It was pigeon all the time.
Shots for today: