I have been holding off on writing a blog with the hope that one of the chicks would have hatched, which I could feature in this blog. Alas, we are still waiting for the big reveal, but that’s nature, never predictable! I have zoomed in on the webcam with the hope we can capture a better view of the event itself, and we will continue to closely watch the webcam.

Over the past couple of weeks, Maya and 33(11) have continued to take it in turns to incubate the three eggs and it’s always fascinating to watch them roll the eggs in order to evenly distribute the heat. It’s amazing how gentle their movements are as they carefully roll them using their beaks, whilst their talons are tucked in to avoid damaging the eggs; Maya and 33(11) almost crawling around on their ‘elbows’ or tarsometatarsus.

Once the chicks hatch the strongest part of their body is their neck, which helps drive a hardened tip of the upper mandible into the surrounding eggshell. Even then, they are still a little wobbly and we have come to fondly call them ‘bobbleheads’. The chicks are vocal before they hatch and will make soft ‘peeping’ noises from within the eggshell, which the adult Osprey will be able to hear, alerting them to their imminent hatching.

Research has been carried out as to whether adult birds can communicate with un-hatched chicks to warn of danger or for contact and research has suggested that not only can the unhatched chick hear the warning of an adult, it can warn its clutch-mates as well, which is really clever, in my opinion.

33(11) has been catching plenty of fish, though sometimes he accidentally drops it as he brings it to Maya! However, most of the time he is successful in delivering it to Maya who takes the fish off to eat it elsewhere on a nearby perch.