Never a Dull Moment in Falcon Town – Confirmation on Historic 4th Egg Pip

The action starts early in this town. Ares came screeching up to the box with prey at 3:08 AM. Temperatures were again in the low thirties, so Astrid had her brood huddled up in the back west corner of the box and that’s where she fed them. In the early morning we couldn’t tell if egg # 4 was pipped or not due to its remaining cupped by the half-shell of egg # 3. Utilizing leftovers from the prior feeding, Astird conducted another feeding at 5:36, and this time it was light enough so we could see what was happening. All three of the chicks appeared to be getting fed. The mid-morning was quiet in the canyon, but then Astrid sounded an alarm at 10:40. As far as we could tell, there were just a few Turkey Vultures sailing over and so the emergency was short-lived. At 12:29 PM, Ares brought more food to the box. Astrid took it, looked like she was going to start feeding and then abruptly dove out of the box with the food. Meanwhile one of the chicks became separated from the others (by only about 10 inches). When Astrid returned, for some reason she seemed to concentrate on feeding only that one. Finally, after leaving and coming back yet again, she stretched over and started feeding the other hungry customers. However, they still seemed hungry when she again departed with the leftovers. When she came back, she seemed at a loss on how to gather all the chicks (and the egg) together in one easy to manage brood. After some awkward attempts, she finally managed it, but it wasn’t pretty! Ares finally got a relatively long shift with the brood in the early afternoon. It was warm and sunny for a change, and he spent most of the time shading. Astrid was back in the box at 2:17, and she spent most of her shift shading, looking uncomfortable and regularly jostling the brood. The jostling actually served to free egg # 4 from the cast-off half shell it had been stuck in since Wednesday. That was good news. Ares was with the brood when the old shell fell off and he was seen munching on it. After that we waited for an opportunity to get a look at egg # 4 to see if it was truly pipped. At 5:30 we finally confirmed that the fourth egg really did have a hole in it and we could even detect movement of the chick inside. This means that there will very likely be an unprecedented fourth chick in the nest at some point very soon.  I say unprecedented because we’ve never had more than 3 nestlings in a Utica nest before. By 5:56 PM, the pip had become much bigger and the chick inside seemed to be determined to get out ASAP. As of this writing (7:30 PM), egg # 4 still hadn’t hatched, but we expect it at any time. Ares brought prey to the box at 6:37 and Astrid did another feeding; this time she fed all of the chicks until they were completely satiated and toppled over in a heap of white fluff. As usual, we ask you all to stay tuned!