A day of exchanges, food offerings, egg keeping. I saw them mate this morning and witnessed a food pass late afternoon. Azina refused the pigeon offered when on the ledge but accepted it in the air and went to eat it on the roof of Muscal House (that block of flats she’s taken a shine to). I am expecting the third egg sometime in the night: around 4:30 if she keeps to the same schedule as the second egg (60 hours) or before (last year it took 57 hours so it could be as early at 1:30). Time will tell. She is currently in the box, on the eggs, after her dinner, which took about an hour.
Quite different to yesterday. Colder and wetter so Azina has brooded the chicks for most of the day and when she wasn’t then Tom did it. Though he’s struggling a fair bit to fit them all, and so is Azina to be fair 😉
Azina brooding the chicks
Which means that pretty much the only times they could flap their wings were during feeds and they did that a lot.
Tom feeding the chicks – Feeds often time to do some flapping
There were 6 feeds today, one by Tom. Mostly pigeon on the menu with a bit of Starling.
One thing I noticed today and that’s thanks to the 4 day gap between the chicks. When they hatch their feet are pink. When they fledge they’re pale yellow. On the shots where you can see that the feet of the older ones have started to turn yellow when they’re next those of the younger one. Because it’s a very subtle change I’d never noticed that before, and also because we’ve not had such big gaps before (especially with single chicks! 😉 )
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.
Two chicks and two eggs
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…
The third chick has just hatched
An hour later Azina gives us another glimpse. The chick has dried up a little.
Glimpse of the third chick a bit fluffier
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.
First views of fluffy third chick during the second feed of the day
It didn’t have to wait too long in the end as it got its first bits of food at the next feed.
The third chick gets its first food
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.
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.
The second egg laying video. Azina got up from the egg at 4.35, got into position at 4.38, pushes at 4.40/4.41 and at 4.42 she lifts up to let the egg to dry off. At 4.46 she turns a bit and starts settling down.
This makes it 60 hours and 10 minutes between the first two eggs.
