It's exciting that Ivy is going to be a dad finally. Can't wait to see him with offspring of his own. I wonder if his passive nature will disappear once he has some eyases to protect or will he be the patient dad
I'm not sure how passive he is, but he is spookily silent for a peregrine. And that quietness seems to be influencing Princess, she's very quiet this year too. Interestingly, I've heard more of the pair-bond vocalizing than I have heard alarm/alert/defensive vocalizations. He was very quiet with Jules too. Dennis and I remarked more than once how quiet they were as a pair. Quiet, yes. Not sure yet about the passive part - he did make some amazing flybys at my head last year in West Winnipeg.
Because Ivy is a new dad this year, is it likely we will have less eggs than usual ? or more? or the usual 3 - 4 ? Or any of the above ?
Not sure how many eggs we will end up with. He's young so that should work in his favour. She's older but Madame was producing good numbers at twice Princess' age. Don't know if the blood relationship will affect numbers, didn't seem to affect the productivity of the Virginia male peregrine when he was paired with his sister for a number of years.
So who knows, we will have to wait and see - more than we usually have to I mean!
Ok, I'm curious, Tracy - were you there around 11 or so this morning? Both parents seemed somewhat agitated, flying around and around and finally sitting on the tower - reminded me of of banding times!
Yup, that was us. They were giving Dennis the evil eye from the tower while I was checking the box and the egg. And yes, Dennis had his camera with him, so hopefully we have a photo of two of the pair of them on the tower ...
Excellent news Happy that the first egg has been laid in the west nest box. Is this early for them or is it usually around the same dates every year?
Its about normal, maybe as much as a week earlier than usual, but that could be attributed to the warm weather. Last year, after they had laid all their eggs, they were incubating in a blizzard/ice storm. Hopefully it will be easier on them this year - the nestbox will help, but still would be nice to see them have fewer trials and tribulations!