Day 22: 3 weeks old

Hot on the heels of the 2 weeks comparison montage, I give you the 3 weeks one:

The increase in size since the previous week is not that obvious in this shot, but the change in posture is, and there is some feathering around the face.

The trio, when not asleep, are a lot more mobile and adventurous. For the first time, at the beginning of this afternoon, they all went out exploring outside the nest box. Only one had done it sofar, for about 2 minutes yesterday evening.

2 weeks old

Apologies for the silence, we had developed a fault and couldn't connect to the cctv cameras for a while. The system was still recording images and I have spent some time looking at past footage once we were back and running, so I could update the weekly comparison montage.
I found a chick in almost the same spot as where they hatched. The light was unfortunately not at its best, but the growth is obvious.

What is also obvious is how messy the nest has become...

Day 13, chicks are growing

A selection of shots from the past few days.

On Friday morning, the chicks were fed a Parakeet. Parakeets are quite abundant around here (it being West London) and quite a favourite with Peregrines and in particular this pair.

On Saturday, I saw the male feed the chicks for the first time:

By the evening, the first projectile poop had hit the camera, thankfully not impinging on the view of the chicks, which is still only partial for the moment.

On Sunday, the chicks were fed yet another pigeon...

... leaving them to sleep in a bed of pigeon feathers:

For more shots, visit the flickr album

one week old

The 2 oldest chicks are now one week old and have grown quite a bit as you can see from this comparison montage:

Today's shot was taken at the end of the morning when the chicks were fed another pigeon:


This was before we had some rain. In the gap between 2 showers, the female looked like having a sip from the puddle in front the nestbox:

We had some thunder and Dad popped on the ledge to check on the rest of the family:

Then we had a lot more rain:

Day 5, 3 little heads

Pretty good view of 3 little heads at an early feed time:

The falcon has been doing most of the brooding and feeding as far as I have seen.Unfortunately, the chicks are still out of view for most of the time.

Day 4

There was rain overnight and the chicks were moved towards the back of the nestbox.

Last night:

This morning:

Various prey items have been brought in and out:

And then there were three!

The 2 chicks hatched yesterday were fed quite regularly today:

At around 5pm, there was clear view of the chicks and the remaining egg. I thought I could see a crack, but with the resolution could not be too sure. Then at 7:15pm, the falcon was discarding a piece of eggshell and eating it.

It wasn't until 8:45pm that she finally got up and revealed that, indeed, the 3rd chick had hatched. I think it's the one on the left on the shot below, it looks a little bit less fluffy and fat...