As of June 2nd, the 7th & 8th eggs are gone. No sign of any more activity in the nest box. We are very disappointed.
After a week or so of Trillium “kinda” taking care of the one egg she has, she has produced another, #8 for the record. She appears to be in hard incubation since the egg was laid (sometime between May 24th 8:00am & May 26th 7:00am). Let’s see what happens this time.
On May 18th, the 6th egg of the year was consumed. However, on May 20th another egg was laid & is currently being incubated.
Believe it or not, Trillium has laid another egg (Her 6th one of the year). This comes 2 weeks after the 5th egg was laid and for some reason destroyed. Our hopes are not high for this egg to hatch after what has happened so far but we have our fingers crossed & are still hoping the birds will have some success this year.
I have very bad news to report. Over the weekend one of the 2 remaining eggs here was eaten & today the last egg in the nest box was eaten by one of the adults.
After eating one egg yesterday, Trillium laid her 5th egg of the year. So she now has 2 eggs to tend to as the first 3 have been consumed. We have our fingers & toes crossed that these 2 eggs hatch. At this point the egg survival is 2 for 5.
Today at 10:30 am a banded male falcon was observed consuming one of the 2 eggs in the scrape here. I’m not sure if it was the resident male Bill, or another falcon. I can tell by the colour of the egg that it was the 3rd egg laid by Trillium (the 1st 2 laid were eaten). So the good news is that we still have 1 egg left (the 4th one laid) & she appears to be taking good care of it after the discouraging news of what has transpired today. Stay tuned.
Today at about 2:00 pm Trillium produced another egg. Surprisingly enough she hasn’t as of yet eaten the egg she produced last week. With the addition of the 2nd egg things should be interesting if & when these eggs hatch (because they were laid so far apart). We have our fingers crossed for some success but are well aware of what could happen in this crazy world of Mother Nature.
It’s a little frustrating down here. Trillium laid her 2nd egg of the year on Fri. Apr. 4th 7am & by noon she was eating it. We may have a possible explanation because on Tues. Apr. 08 there were 3 falcons in the box, Trillum, Bill & another male who were pecking at each other. Perhaps this is the reason for the strange behaviour of eating eggs. However, there is still hope as Trillium produced another egg (3rd) this morning. Hopefully it works out better for them this time.
At around 7:00 am on Friday Mar. 28th Trillium laid her 1st egg of the year. Sadly enough, at 2:00 pm the same day she proceeded to consume the egg that she sat on all day. We are really concerned about this very disturbing behaviour considering she has consumed about a dozen eggs over the last couple of years. We wonder what possible reason would provoke this unusual habit. Trillium has not produced any more eggs yet. However, Buffalo Bill was observed in the nest box today digging out the scrape. The CPF thinks that there could be a territorial struggle going on here but we have not witnessed any confrontations or intruders in the area. I was up to check the beam where she has laid eggs in the past just in case she decided to try a different spot but thankfully there is nothing there. Never a dull moment here, but there certainly are some discouraging ones.