Great news at the peregrine nesting site, we watched with excitement as the 1^st chick hatched at about 3.40 pm yesterday. The tiercel was on incubation duty when it hatched and he soon started calling to the falcon to come and take over the mothering of the chick. She changed over with him at 4.04 pm and we got a great view of the chick on the ledge. She started to eat the egg shell a little later, it is added calcium. She also was eating a lot more grit than usual to aid with the digestion of the egg shells.

I arrived at the nest site this morning to see an empty egg shell lying next to the falcon sitting on the nest, and a few minutes later got a clear view of the 2^nd chick. I presume it had hatched early this morning as she hadn’t eaten the egg shell yet. At 8.30 the falcon flew off the nest for a couple of minutes and I got an amazing view of the two fluffy white chicks.

Tom – Species Protection Officer