Today the Pitt peregrine chicks are 16 days old, fluffy white and weighing 1 to 1.5 pounds depending on sex. Male peregrines are always lightweight (about 1 pound at this age). Female peregrines are the heavy ones. We can’t weigh them visually so we don’t know their sexes.
You can’t see it on camera yet but the chicks’ flight feathers have just begun to emerge. It will be another four days before we’ll see the dark edges of their coming feathers. By then they’ll also have feathered faces.
Like all babies, these two spend their days eating and sleeping. In this Day In A Minute from Tuesday May 7 they have a very active moment at the front of the nest around 6pm.
The older they get the more active they’ll be. Watch them on the National Aviary falconcam at Univ. of Pittsburgh.
(video from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Hope seems to be one itchy bird this season. Seems everytime I see her on camera, she’s scratching. It makes me itchy watching her. I know sometimes they treat the chicks when they band them, but I guess Hope is on her own.
Yeah, but the egg there (they’ve moved it into the middle now) it used to be over to the left. Nobody is commenting on it. Quite sure it’s dead. Are they eating this as well? Or is it being left there to rot. ? Sorry for my ignorance, but no one is commenting on the dead bird egg … at least I can’t find any comments on the dead bird egg. *sigh* poor li’l thinglette.
A L, eggs that don’t hatch may be infertile without even be a chick in them. So you don’t have to feel bad about it. And yes, they’ll just push it around until it’s in an out of the way corner. They won’t eat it. (I’d be extremely surprised if they do.)
Please excuse me for being off topic, but I don’t know who else to ask.
Has anyone suggested that one of the Hays eaglets is in distress? One is up and trying its wings and the other is always down, even at feeding.
John Morgan, as far as I know, the eaglets are fine. Yesterday (7 May 2019) Audubon of Western PA (ASWP) that manages the eaglecam reported on their Facebook page: “Two healthy eaglets in the Hays nest. And two healthy eaglets in the Harmar nest. It’s a good year for our region’s eagles!” ASWP keeps close tabs on the eaglets. Ask/write to them on their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pittsburgheagles/
How soon will the chicks be banded?
Within a week