Day 36, juvenile rescue

I was in the middle of writing a post about the chicks' development this afternoon when I received a phone call: "one of the chicks is in our courtyard". We were in the middle of preparing for fledging which I thought would not come until next week so this was taking us a little bit by surprise.

Reviewing the recording, at 14:09, the chick went to the right hand side of the ledge and leapt over the parapet. The courtyard where it was found was on the other side of the ledge so it must have managed some flying. The workers who found it managed to put a box over it and we waited for Dave to come over to check it and release it to the roof.

By the time Dave arrived, we had realised that a second chick had left, in exactly the same way, at 15:31. It has been looked for but not found yet.

Dave got the box off the chick and gave it a good inspection. Verdict: a female, in good condition, but looking like 2/3 days from fledging. Very feisty and very strong, she didn't want to let go of the gloves when Dave put her in the box...

As you can see, feathers fully developed, but still a bit of down at the base of the tail.
We brought her up all the way to the roof, above the nest ledge and quickly left.

She quickly jumped onto that wall on her left and must have followed it around the building as I found her (at least I think it's her) above her parents a while later.

As I am typing this, the third chick is asleep in the nestbox, it must be feeling lonely...

4 weeks old!

I can't believe the chicks are 4 weeks old and they have grown up so much since the 3rd week!
I couldn't find a shot with a chick in quite the right place, but I think the shot I chose in the end illustrate how much the wing feathers have come in just 7 days:

Day 23: aquatic adventures

Towards the end of the morning, Dad came to feed the chicks, though he looks a bit daunted by the prospect in this shot:

Then, one chick started wandering:

Then another:

What they didn't realise was that it was going to rain, and quite hard, and they took refuge in a corner to shelter from the rain:

Photo by Dave Morrison

One of the chicks braved the rain and came back to the nestbox about half an hour later, looking a bit bedraggled:

2pm, and the second chick was still in the corner, but enjoying a spell of sunshine:

It took food to finally drag it back to the box:

However, as soon as this one was back, another one decided to go and have fun in the puddle:

After 10 minutes, it decided to come and join Mum and the others back in the box, and made a rather undignified re-entry:

Anyone else seen this kind of behaviour before?

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: