Well he certainly had his adventure. However, the trip is over and not much happening now. I know this pen is probably good with the problems from this site before, but wonder if this is a really good site.
Our chicks had a minimal ledge to look at and we could see their little heads in a couple of weeks looking over. These chicks can't see over until they jump on the ledge and then what happens, they are over before their time. So this ledge is not typical.
The male should definitely fledge before the females, so are they going to hold him back until the females are ready?
Tracy always had an answer as to why the chicks didn't jump:
Unlike the edge of the nest-tray, they will never had an adult on the other side of the ledge wall tempting them out with food. They are also predisposed at this age to run away from the edge of the ledge if they can see down (keep in mind they can barely see over) - have you noticed they all sleep with their faces in the wall furthest away from the edge?
The other side of the coin is that if a chick was foolish enough to try to go over, those are perhaps not genes we want in our gene pool - we want birds with a little common sense i.e., peregrines are cliff-dwelling birds, chicks as a rule stay on ledge until they can fly, flying must wait for long brown feathers which 16-day-old chicks do not yet possess.
