Took advantage of the break in the rain to check out Hart and Joli at Logan. We estimated their eggs were due to start hatching on May 24th and looking at the chicks this morning, it looks like they are about 3 days old, so our estimate looks pretty good. Can't say for sure if there were 3 or 4 chicks - when we checked for eggs last month there were just 3 and incubation hadn't begun. Suspect that Joli would have laid a 4th but she, and the weather, have not been cooperative. We space out our visits to only when necessary so once we could confirm she had eggs and that incubation was about to begin we knew we didn't need to check on them until hatch time. Hatch time came and went however because with the rain we weren't going to take a chance of the chicks getting wet. Then came this morning and it hadn't rained overnight and there was only a 30-40% chance of rain so we thought we see if we couldn't get a quick look. Took us 4 minutes to get a good look, mostly because Joli was coming in with a meal (a rose-breasted grosbeak - a first for me as peregrine prey). Chicks remained pretty oblivious to everything other than the fact that mom wasn't sitting on them anymore. Couldn't tell for sure how many chicks there were in their little pile, but I think 4 - we could see two heads and I think another two butts that couldn't possibly be attached to those two heads no matter how flexible chicks are. Won't know until we check on them again, which won't be for awhile and will of course depend on the weather cooperating.
Our luck held this morning, it started to rain 20 minutes after we left Logan. Joli would have retrieved her grosbeak, fed her kids and everyone would have been neatly tucked back under her before the rain began.
