!!! EIGHT EGGS!!! OH MY GOODNESS!!! A DOUBLE CLUTCH!!
April 30, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Mark Nash Reports:
April 30th - 2015
Ok, this is a record no mater how you shake it out!! (NO pun intended)!! This is NOT a photo-shop gag!
As a result of the territorial battles that resulted in the death of the long standing resident adult male at Holcim, the new sub-adult resident male on site wasn’t wasting any time in his efforts to create his own family,,, (nor is the resident adult female it would seem given the second clutch of 4 eggs that she has now laid)!!!! NOW EIGHT EGGS in total are visible in the nest!!
The first clutch of 4 eggs (seen in the photo as being the much lighter in colour, bleached out by the sun while they were not being attended to during the territorial battles and the lack of a support male to help the resident female with her full time incubation duties) still remains,,, among the newly laid (much more vibrant rusty brown coloured eggs) that the resident adult female has just recently produced. This is a second clutch of 4 eggs!!!
We highly suspect that the first clutch of 4 egg are addled, (and if they were in fact fertile in the first place), the embryo’s have likely long since died as a result of the eggs being allowed to get too cold. The unhatched chicks simply die as a result of cold and hyperthermia. It doesn’t take much of a temp drop given the small mass / size of the peregrines egg. As for the second clutch of 4 eggs, you never know, they just maybe fertile, as the new resident sub-adult male on site just maybe old enough to impregnate the female and cause fertilization!
That being said, take a close look at the photo,, (unless the resident adult female expels or consumes some of the addled eggs, making some room), you can see the daunting task ahead of the pair trying to successfully cover and incubate any of the eggs given their total mass, (and the lack of sufficient nesting sub-straight and a much deeper nesting bowl that would help contain this many eggs) is going to be very difficult indeed!
Sadly, in this case, this particular elevation at Holcim is not one that we can easily get too from the ground, to simply just add a nest tray and additional nesting sub-straight without a very large costly telescopic or crane lift type equipment. While it is true that we have installed both nest trays and nest boxes at much higher elevations over the past year at several other OPG nest sites, the very expensive lift equipment was at the time, already on site at these other locations and at hand with operators available for us to utilize them.
While the female peregrine is much larger than the male, (and in this case, she is much more experienced),, even under the existing conditions and current situation, trying to successfully contain and incubate 8 eggs will be a daunting task for her,,, (let along for the much smaller, less experienced male)!!
A huge thank you to Armando and Stephanie for the great photos and updates!! Great work indeed folks!!!
Stay tuned……………………..
