FIRST, there was some rather strong evidence of pair bonding, right on the ledge.
THEn, the third egg appeared at about 11 pm on 24th August. No dramas there, but seemed a bit of a strain. They are really quite big eggs for such a small bottom.
VIDEO 20180825 0004 h first glimse egg 3
The male, Xavier, had no problem covering all three eggs, although he’s clearly not a very big male. This was brought into focus when a male intruder arrived, one noticeably larger than Xavier. At first he came and had a look and got a really frosty reception from Diamond, who ‘keened’ and screamed at him. He then came later with prey, but she ignored him (starling is not her favourite food, so this was not a good start).. and he left.
20180829 strange male with star
And this morning there might been a ‘scuffle’ just outside the box. You can just see the peregrine trying to land, but he is thwarted for some reason and there was a lot of angry noises about.
And for those who can’t read Mp4 20180831 PF failed landing.
NB I prefer not to use .avi format as they are such huge files, but I’ll keep putting some in.
Youtube is very busy if you want to chat (especially on the nest cam). I’ll update this weekly until hatching (three weeks), then more often. Cilla
The drama continues with the appearance on Saturday arv (31 Aug) of a female who sat quietly on the ledge for some time while Diamond sat on the eggs. No aggression between them – speculation that she may be older offspring, and therefore familiar to Diamond – without a band I suppose we’ll never know 🙁 I wonder what sort of maternal memory Peregrines have, and how they would recognise their grown-up ‘children”?
And as I commented on chat, I think this is probably a largish male – unless of course we have more than one stray bird around, which is unlikely…