34 days after the 4th egg was laid, the first 2024 Sheffield Peregrine chick was revealed from underneath the incubating Falcon at around 1522 on Saturday 27th of April. Chicks two and three hatched over the next few hours and by dusk only one egg was left to hatch.
Given that the different pairings of peregrines over the years at Saint Georges have only ever successfully hatched a full clutch of 4 eggs on two previous occasions it wasn’t certain whether the 4th egg would hatch at all.
A 34 day incubation period was two or three days longer than expected, especially given the lack of snow this year, but then again temperatures have been quite chilly of late. Nature keeps it’s own timetable.
It had been clear that something was about to happen for a couple of days as the incubating birds had been very fidgety on the eggs over the Thursday on Friday proceeding, constantly shuffling and rearranging the eggs and their position covering them. The adults could clearly hear or feel that something was happening underneath them.
Good news arrived on the Sunday morning when the 4th chick was seen under the falcon.
However the good news didn’t last long with one of the chicks sadly passing away some time on Sunday evening. Certainly there was a dead chick corpse alongside the 3 hungry feeding mouths on Monday morning. Rather surprisingly the adults did not immediately remove or consume the dead chick as would usually be the case (but not always) in a raptor nest.
Sadly there is no way of knowing why the chick didn’t make it or indeed which chick it was – was it the 1st to hatch? The last? Or one of the others? We’ll never know. It’s the first time Sheffield Peregrines have hatched four but not gone on to fledge 4. It’s disappointing but these are wild birds and these things happen in nature.
The 4 chicks which hatched this year are the 33rd, 34th, 35th & 36th Chicks to have hatched here at St Georges since the spring of 2012. Of those 36 we’ve only lost 2 – one in 2019 and one this week – interestingly, or perhaps merely coincidentally, both of those chicks were lost only hours after hatching. The previous 31 have all gone on to fledge successfully, let’s hope this season’s remaining 3 chicks follow suit. Fingers crossed. It’s a long road between now and then – but beware! The time will pass all too quickly!
So Keep Watching!
Sheffield Peregrines 
On the 28 April, it looked as if one chick got strangled under the wing of the parent bird that was keeping them warm. I have a screenshot if you are interested. Thereafter, I saw one bird move a lifeless body to the back of the nest and later it seemed to be eating part of it.
Hi Jenny. Yes we’d be interested in your screenshot. Please can you send it to secretary@sbsg.org ?
FAO Sheffield Peregrines.
On the 27th I saw Dad handling chick no. 1 very roughly, twice picking it up by the neck and back and carrying it some distance. At one point he seemed about to secure it with his talons as they do before feeding but at the last minute he recognised it as a chick, moved his talons and brooded it. I recorded the whole thing from my screen.
Thanks I’d be interested to see the recording.
Will do. NB It’s 89Mb, .wmv. .Shall I convert to sthg smaller or send youa WeTransfer link?
A WeTransfer would be perfect thanks.
OK, done. You’ll see I paused the video a couple of times while nothing was happening, tokeep the file size down. I think I got everything significant, though. By the way, how was the dead chick disposed of, eventually? No sign of it now.
It will have either been taken away or eaten by a parent 😬
Just watched it again and noticed that the chick twice got caught up in a talon and was trampled, too, as he tried to get everything covered. Poor wee thing.