Peregrine eyases are somewhat helpless!
May 17, 2012 in Chicks Only, In the Nest Box
The chicks continue to huddle and the unhatched pair of eggs remain on the nest box. Our friends at the Raptor Resource Center explain about falcon chick growth patterns: eyases are somewhat helpless! One parent (often the female but sometimes the male) stays with the chicks while the other finds food for the brood. Eyases eat an incredible amount of food – but then, they double their weight in only six days and at three weeks will be ten times birth size. Newly hatched chicks are wet and covered with white down. But by three weeks of age, brownish juvenile feathers can be seen poking through the white fuzz. By five or six weeks of age, the white fuzz has been completely replaced by brown feathers. The eyases can be observed jumping around and testing their wings, getting ready to fly.
Link to online article about Manchester NH peregrines: http://www.nhaudubon.org/peregrine-falcon-chicks-banded-at-brady-sullivan-tower
Link to article in Machester Union Leader: “Prime Time for Peregrines” by Mark Hayward, Union Leader, May 11