Rain, yes, but not in the eyrie…

Observation date: 2 April 2014

So far so good on the incubation of eggs. Today was the sixteenth day on the scrape*. Incubation intervals are anywhere from two hours to three and a half hours. Brooding puts a real kink in their eating schedule with only the tiercel hunting. I’ve seen a couple of times where she had to take her turn on the eggs with an empty crop. She was not really happy when he came back with a half eaten small sandpiper. As he made his landing at the edge of the eyrie, she stopped him cold with her chest, ripped the prey from his talons as she was berating him and flew off to the butcher block where she finished the prey in a half a minute. She let him sit for nearly 4 hours that time on the eggs.

During her off time she hangs around the rock, takes a dust bath, exercises a bit and perches, but not him, when he comes off the nest, he’s gone for two hours nowhere to be seen.

Shining water drips down the rock face into the eyrie                                 Photo by Bob Isenberg

For the last few days, we have had more than a half inch of rain. You can see the peregrine in the hole we call the “mouth.”  Water flows from this hole into the large hole below which is the nest site. A lot more rain and the eggs could be floating. Most years, this nest site is dry at this time. Keep your fingers crossed.

Cleve Nash, our local photographer, was at the Shell Beach eyrie today. The falcons there are brooding, also, as is a very large Canadian Honker (Canada Goose) nearby whose chicks will be in great danger when they hatch. Stay tuned!

Canada goose tending eggs                                                      Photo by Cleve Nash

Happy trails, Bob

Item: Scrape is a depression in rock or gravel in lieu of building a stick nest.