This afternoon at about 4:35pm, Hope laid her fourth egg of the season.
Her first three eggs were fathered by her deceased mate, E2, whose body was found on March 16. This fourth egg arrived 15 days later and is undoubtedly fathered by her new mate Terzo.
Will she lay more eggs? We don’t know.
Will she begin incubation now? We’ll have to wait and see.
Only Hope knows the answers to these questions.
Stay tuned on the National Aviary falconcam at University of Pittsburgh to find out.
UPDATE:
Here’s a video captured by Peter Fullbrandt showing Hope laying the egg. Skip to the 5:00 mark and you will see her breathing with her beak open for about 30 seconds. When she raises her tail (at the 5:33 mark) it’s just after she’s laid the egg, though you cannot see it. We waited for an hour for her to move off the eggs so we could count four.
(photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh; video capture by Peter Fullbrandt)
Kate, am curious regarding her breathing with her beak open. Don’t recall seeing this before.
Patsy, Chris Saladin (C&C’s Ohio Peregrine Page on Facebook) has remarked that they sometimes do this. Perhaps similar to labor.
Did Terzo come and visit the egg? E2 always visited the nest after his mate laid an egg, didn’t he? I don’t know if that’s common behavior for the male or not.
Mary Ann, not that we’ve noticed. On the other hand it’s been raining since she laid the egg and now it’s night. He will get to see it in the morning.
Wonderful news! I heard Terzo off camera shortly after 5PM, & Hope answered him, so he knows.
Pasty, if you look back at the Wild Earth archives when Hope laid the first (I think) egg, she exhibited the same breathing with her beak open then…
Thank you Kate and Claire for the info.
You go Hope. We need some happy news from this nest for a change.