I'll answer in segments as it seems easiest ...
New Home: Chicks are safe and will be hacked from outside of Winnipeg. There is a hacksite attendent who will be watching over and feeding the chicks until they teach themselves to hunt sometime in the next 5-6 weeks. And no, I'm not the attendent, there was one already in place for this site which is what made it a viable option for the WW chicks. And we are keeping the chicks together so it will still be them against the world which is a good thing.
Banding & Transmitters: Chicks haven't been banded yet, but they will be. We will be banding them when they get their transmitters. We have an opportunity to safely fit them with transmitters so we will only disturb them once and do both at the same time. Sometime after that when we are sure they have imprinted on the location, we will open up the hack box (a hack box looks a bit like a birdie jail with all the amenities) and the birds will be able to fledge but will know to return for food. After they fledge, they will do all the usual peregrine things including starting to hunt as their hardwiring to chase and catch kicks in, just like the Radisson bird do and Brandon birds will when they chase their parents.
Food: Yes it is quail that is fed to the peregrines as it is more wild than chicken which makes a difference to peregrines that hunt. We tried to source the quail locally but it was all spoken for for the captive-bred chicks being released this year. And in fact we had to be sure we had food on the way before we could scoop the WW chicks yesterday. The chicks basically eat one quail a day, so 3 chicks x 6 weeks (42 days) plus a few more to cover our bases and replace 5 days worth "borrowed" from Lisa at Prairie Wildlife Rehab and we are ordering 200 frozen quail to be flown in by the end of the week. The quail are a reasonable price but the shipping is a bit expensive - so about $5 per quail all told.
Jules & Beau: Interestingly, only Jules came to protest when I was retrieving her chicks and not until I was scooping up the last chick. Beau never left the Diner. Afterwards Jules had a close inspection of the nestsite and of course couldn't find any chicks then she and Beau had a flight together north of the nestsite before she when back to the Diner, then back to the nestsite. The chicks are within days of fledging and about the same age as Polo when he fledged and died last year, so the adults are shifting to a new phase in their relationship with the chicks - the chicks chase them for food and they protect them when they get into trouble. This is very different from have chicks confined to a nestsite and wholly dependent on their parents. Beau & Jules reacted well to the loss of Polo last year and I'm thinking they will do the same again this year since by the time we could get to the chicks, they were most the way to being fully independent.
Plans for Next Year: Same as this year, try to prevent Jules from nesting here again and encourage her to nest elsewhere. We've made headway on the excluding her next year and made even more headway on providing Beau and Jules with alternates that they will like - particularly Beau who seems to prefer nestboxes. Last year's and this year's events have contributed greatly to making headway, so that's a bonus.
Names: Yes, these chicks will be getting names. Will let everyone know when they are named.
