Hatch was at 0437h, first meal was at 1119h. First meal was a little later than I'd have liked, but she's raised chicks successfully for years, so I try not to second-guess her.
Hard not to though given her sister Spencer didn't feed her first hatches - I removed the first two the first year (one survived, one did not) and pulled 3 chicks in year two at eight hours old and none of them survived. She nested elsewhere for four years but never had any chicks, so I have to assume, they didn't make it through the first few days.
And while I really liked Hurricane, she was a devoted, tough mama, my recollections of her nesting when we had an operating cam in Brandon (sure do miss that cam), she was a pretty stingy feeder for her chicks. Her chicks were fine, just smaller/lighter than others we had at the time. She did have a couple of chicks that died in the nestbox, but they were more weather related as I recall. Ella's chicks have all survived and it seems she is more like her mom Hurricane than Spencer fortunately! And she takes after Hurricane in other ways so taking after her mom is not a bad thing at all!!
Why so long for the first meal? Maybe its because it has been more than a little cool over the last 24-36 hours or perhaps its because another of the eggs has a significant pip in it and Ella wasn't inclined to get off quite yet. Or heck, maybe Pip was late with breakfast, though its not like she let him know they'd had a hatch, she's been very quiet and tight on the eggs/chick since 0330h (yup, some of us disturbed sleep last night, nothing to do with the peregrines
). Or maybe the chick wasn't active enough to convince her it wanted/needed a meal. Whatever the reason, chick one has hatched safely and Ella's has been reminded that a) she now has to share her snacks with the wee white fuzzy ones and b) that wee white fuzzy ones wobble a lot.
