!!! Two hatchlings confirmed, and likely three!
May 05, 2012 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Mark Nash Reports:
Saturday May 5th - 2012
It was still a windy rather cool day despite the blue skies and sunny conditions and the adult female was not giving much up as I peeked through the peep holes of the nest box this afternoon.
She was tightly down in brooding mode and doing a great job covering her new family members.
I was able to confirm at least two hatchlings, with a possible third hatchling. Although all I was able to see two tiny little white fluffy butts!
Sadly, I was unable to get any sort of full view of the hatchlings, so it was impossible to age them. As such we will have to take our best guess of their age based on our observations of the resident adults behaviour as it relates to their activity in and around the nest box.
Long before we had cameras installed on any of the nest ledges, it was (ans still is) very easy to identify the first day of a hatch based on the close daily monitoring that we do on each of the active nest sites.
As in this case, it is believed that the first hatch happened on or about April 30th or May 1st.
Until I can get an physical eyeball or a photo of all of the hatchlings together, there will be no way to positively determine their exact size, thus identify the biggest, (that will at this age), allow me to identify the oldest and first hatched. I can then properly age the oldest / first hatched and come up with an exact hatch date.
Stay tuned…………