It's been a tough weekend and some things have happened that may end this project. As I wait for the dust to settle tho I wanted to let you all know that I did check on the single dad raising chicks. I arrived with angst wondering what I would find, but immediately saw three chicks heads pop up! Yeah! Dad was not there tho. I waited for about 15- 20 minutes and Mr Mom flew in with a fish. Two chicks bellied up to the bar and the third hung back. He fed the first two until they wandered off to the far side of the nest, and then the third chick got some fish. Mr mom stayed for a short time, preening a bit and watching over the chicks before he flew off towards the lake again....yup, that third chick needed a little more food. I waited for another fish to arrive, but with so many nests to check, I headed out after another 15 minutes. All is well, all chicks are fed, they look great, looking like they are about 5 weeks old now, no down showing between the feathers anymore, and the tail feathers are about 4" long. Every week we are closer to fledging, which means they could fly away from a predator, but of course, fledging brings its own dangers. But every week I am more hopeful that this male may actually pull this off. We still have a few weeks to go tho....but, wow! It is so amazing to observe him. Oddly emotional!
I also checked some other nests that are in other parts of town, on very high structures....transmission towers, cell towers etc and they are all well, chicks all accounted for, so they survived the storm last week which cost us 6 chicks.
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