AB / Warburg - Genesee Plant - 2009-18

[The Peregrine Chick]

Parent is in, I see 3 heads and chicks standing.  2 are noticably bigger than the other - 2 girls and a boy maybe! 

Very maybe at this stage, really too young to gauge gender based on size ... remember Taku and Mistrale, she was half the size of her male siblings and Taku (another female) was the same size as the boys!

[carly]

Parent is in, I see 3 heads and chicks standing.  2 are noticably bigger than the other - 2 girls and a boy maybe!

[The Peregrine Chick]

No.  Its not that simple, the birds have be in the phase of the reproductive cycle where the presence of a chick illicits a protective response.  For some birds, this is most of the time, for others not so much.  Trey and Princess are experienced adults and they turned down my offer of foster chicks last year, whereas the pair on William Osler in Ontario took over pre-fledging chicks from another TO site this year.  (Hope I'm remembering the locations correctly).  And there is no reason to take a fourth chick out of a nest, four is a standard nest number - if all the other chicks are fine, then there is no reason to believe that the fourth one is being neglected (peregrines don't practice infanticide).

I'll go see if I can't spot the chick and report back later ...

[Loriann]

all the time.. go to the Mississauga Executive Centre thread., or the newest one, the William Ostler thread for an absolutley awesome story of hacking our orphaned babes from here in mississauga to the new parents in etobicoke.. their eggs did not hatch, our babies needed new parents,and poooooof instant family !

[carly]

They would never take a chick out of a nest to foster unless something was wrong or they felt the young were in danger somehow - by law you aren't allowed to remove them for just any old reason.  We just had a fostering done in Toronto where a new female killed the mother of three chicks.  In this case it was decided to remove the chicks from the nest because the new female may have harmed the offspring as they weren't hers.  In another case in Italy - although they were kestrels not peregrines - 3 chicks were removed when the male (dad) was killed by a car and the female would not have been able to raise 5 offspring on her own.

But from 2 healthy parents, no they wouldn't remove a young one.  IF the young one had died, the parents would remove the body from the nest though. 

[lobi]

Which makes me ask, Do they sometimes remove a chick and move it to a pair that didn't have successful hatching of their own eggs?

[lobi]

I haven't seen the fourth one for quite some time either.  I hoping that Bev caught some shots of the four since the last picture of them was posted.

[carly]

These chicks are adorable but I still cant' make out the fourth - not for a few days now.  Are we sure the wee one survived? 

[bev.]

I will post shots tonight. It is hard to distinguish 4 in the pile. I will have the cam up tomorrow so I will keep an eye for a better shot
Adult standing in front of kids right now.

[maggieblue]

The female from this site is beautiful.  Does she have a name?  I spent quite a bit of time watching yesterday because I could only see 3 heads in the chick pile.  I saw a couple of feedings but mom had her broad back in the way each time so I couldn't count heads. The little guy is probably hidden in the pile somewhere.  It is hard to see where one chick starts and the other ends at this stage. If anyone has seen all four recently that would be reassuring.

[bev.]

When I got back late last night I had an e-mail form one of  the biologists the female at this site is from 2005 from downtown Calgary. the male was not banded I will check out these guys in a bit

[Alison]

No problem, just didn't want to miss Bev's pics if there were some.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Bev's photos from June 6th do show 4 chicks, 1 with its back to the camera and three behind it - two the the left, one to the right. 

I can't seem to find any pics by Bev from June 6? 

Sorry Alison, that was my fault, they were your photos from the 6th - you quoted Bev in the post and that's where I made the mistake ... 

[Alison]

Bev's photos from June 6th do show 4 chicks, 1 with its back to the camera and three behind it - two the the left, one to the right. 

I can't seem to find any pics by Bev from June 6?

[The Peregrine Chick]

Bev's photos from June 6th do show 4 chicks, 1 with its back to the camera and three behind it - two the the left, one to the right.  It is however hard to count them when they are this age because they are so small and tend to stick so close together.  Mealtimes are really the only time we all are going to get an accurate count, particularly with this site's 10 second refresh rate ...