Both Chicks Fine

The front of the nestbox camera has a bit of whitewash on it now-part of the view is blurry because of the poo. It sure would be nice if the chicks could "perfect their aim" and keep from decorating it much more!

Yesterday afternoon, one of the chicks got a foot caught in a crevice just outside of the nestbox. We monitored the situation yesterday. When it was apparent that the bird was not able to free itself we did access the ledge this morning and freed it. When I first went out on the ledge, both chicks were lying down together calmly.

What probably happened is that the foot went down in the crack but when the chick made a fist with its foot, the foot wouldn't fit back up through the crack. The good news is there wasn't any pinching or obvious injury.

Of the two chicks, one has more bluish feet, the other yellow feet. For monitoring purposes, it was the left foot of the chick with the yellow feet. Again, there was no broken skin or cuts so the chick was put back into the nestbox. We will give it a closer look next week at banding, which is scheduled for Tuesday, June 8.

Here is a photo of the area in front of the nestbox. You can see the crack. Know that in over 15 years of this site hosting nesting peregrines we've never had an incident. For now there is a white towel shoved into the crack to keep this from happening again in the next couple of weeks. The white towel is visible on the ledge view - so it might appear as though a chick is under the camera housing but it is only the towel! We apologize in advance for any confusion, but it was the only thing we had with us at the moment.