!!! Surprise, Surprise, Surprise - 4 Hatchlings!
May 27, 2011 - Mississauga - Holcim
CPF Postmaster Reports:
We have only just yesterday received news from Holcim that there has been a photo confirmation of a hatch. .
The second last photo that we received shows the resident adult female in a “brooding posture” as opposed to an incubation posture, as she is covering something under her, with a hunched back and cupped wings. This combined with her lack of interest in the two eggs to the right of her suggests that she is already brooding a hatchling (if not two hatchlings). Subtle differences in the body posturing of the adult female as she was photographed and the event captured in the first photo tell a story of a hatch.
This most recent photo tells the complete story indeed as there are clearly four chicks. Given what we know in that the eggs hatch approx. every other day, the presence of 4 hatchlings, in addition to the first photo of the resident adult female believed to be actually brooding something, and now seeing a photo taken on May 24th of all of the hatchlings, the oldest two chicks are at least 15 days to 17 days old as of yesterday - (May 26th).
Sadly, this news may have come too us far too late in the game to be able to schedule a banding with all of the other bandings already scheduled. Remembering that this site also needs the support of a rock climber and support personal outside of the nest site hosts that also have to be booked and scheduled to pull off a banding. This is one of the reasons that we need updated accurate logistics on territorial activity, egg production, the start of full time incubation and a hatch date as it happens so we can log these events in anticipation of expected hatch dates for banding schedules.
Sadly, it will be left up to the Ministry of Natural Resources scrambling to band the fledglings if and when they come to ground. We can only hope that someone from the MNR will be around when the fledge happens.
