We’ve posted some more video clips of these peregrines (FYI – Peregrinus, subspecies macropus – meaning “large feet” – you learn something new every day!):
Feeding time, with Diamond and the three chicks.
Feeding time, with Bula and the three chicks. Note the difference in size over the chicks – the peregrine male can be up to 1.3rd smaller in stature than the female.
The whole family near the ledge, for a feed.
This is how peregrine falcon chicks relax i.e. flat out like lizards drinking!
Night-moves – the three eyases taking a midnight stretch.
Cuter by the day, although, as you can see in the cameras, that the teenage phase has begun and the main flight feathers are beginning to poke through now. By all calculations (Cilla can back me up here) these chicks have possibly another 8-10 days before thoughts of fledging take over and they chance the 50 metre drop to make their first controlled “solo” flight, which, in the past, hasn’t always been plain sailing. We’ll be watching closely and hoping that the weather improves on last year when Aspro was blown clean out of the eyrie and lost.
Is there a ‘fledge watch’ to rescue chicks in the first week or so?
Hi Clare,
I’m sure we’ll be on campus for some or most of the week keeping an eye on the fledging; let’s hope they all make it out and in to the trees with mum & dad successfully this time. We’ll probably put out an all-points bulletin to campus staff to keep an eye out for stray birds as well!
Lovely videos – the audio really adds something. The chicks look like scruffy little bandits now – can’t believe how quickly they’re changing and how enormous they seem – especially when they start doing all that wing-flapping. Will they come back to the eyrie much once they start flying, or do we only have another couple of weeks of viewing delight?
The three chicks are lined up facing the wall, in order of size! 3:50 a.m. your time…I’m guessing the big one must be a girl and the small one a boy? They are so cute, looking so bedraggled.
I have to go to Bathurst this week for a conference (that I’m organising). Unfortunately my back-up, Tiffany, is also presenting at the conference. The timing is terrible, but that’s life. I’ll be back on Thursday and they shouldn’t be ‘gliding’ until the following week. But I’ll send out an alert to the staff just in case.
I’ll put up a separate post re genders.
Whatever they munched on before had a blue leg tag on it. (Can be seen clearly at 5.17pm)
Thank you for the great post