This is a great way for me to quickly add video to the blog, its not high quality HD but none the the less interesting for that. It's basically a screen shot of the live view from the back of my Pentax camera filmed with my iPad.

It shows the "falcon" tenderly feeding the youngsters with small pieces of meat from a kill. There was some really interesting observations today. Normally I wouldn't visit around noon  but other commitments today dictated that this  was the only time that I could visit.

I made my way to the hide and could see the female on the nest ledge with the white fluffy chicks very noticeable.  When I had gone last evening the sun was beating down strongly on to the ledge.  It was interesting to see how the female shielded the young from the heat with her  wings.  I wonder, is this learned behaviour or instinctive? Today, it was much duller with the ledge in the shade and with warm ambient temperatures, the chicks were not being brooded and I could see them very easily. I had been trying to discover if the 3rd egg had hatched and it wasn't long before I discovered the good news…. all three eggs have produced chicks.

 It is obvious that the incubation commenced after the laying of the second egg and when the 3rd was laid the others would  already be 2 days in to development.  The 2 eggs hatched on Saturday and when the 3rd hatched it was already 2 days behind. With the chicks 6 days old, the 4 day old sibling is considerably smaller. As I watched the falcon feeding the chicks it was obvious that she is a good mother because I observed her feeding the younger chick very carefully.

At first there was no sign of the tercel and the falcon seemed to be wondering what to do. She left the nest several times, returning each time without a kill.  Finally she left again and I heard some screaming, she then returned with a prey item and fed the youngsters which took around 10 minutes.  I was surprised that she didn't fly off with the remains as I had seen before.. The ledge must already be a smelly, fly attracting area. To my utter surprise, some 30 minutes later, or perhaps longer, suddenly the tercel announced his presence with much screaming and commotion. Nothing new there.  She immediately left the ledge and flew to the nearby tree where she took delivery of a female Great-spotted Woodpecker (sadly).  What was going on?  The answer was obvious, she flew down to the ledge and then fed the chicks again with the unfortunate woodpecker. All in all, a very interesting 2 hours with many good photos and video recorded.

 

 

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