Here
you can see Scrap, the chick in the middle of the three in the
picture. He has none of the black and white head feathers of the other
two which look very similar to an adult.
Here
is another image taken a quarter of an hour later. Even Scrap's beak
still seems to have more of the juvenile yellow edging than the beaks of the
others.
The
other three chicks are doing their wing flapping exercises quite frequently
now. We have yet to see Scrap engaging in this activity.
Today
was a very hot day - has the heat gone to Babe's head? Or is it just
that she cannot find food?
Here she appears to have brought in a large bunch of nesting material - moss or something like that - ...
...
and then she tries to feed it to one of the chicks!
I seem to remember seeing something like this happen before, but I cannot remember when.
A
minute later and she is back with some more! This time its a huge
bunch!
More
wing flapping. These chicks will be going in a couple of days at this
rate.
This
shot, taken towards the end of the afternoon, shows the tremendous
difference in development between Scrap and the other three chicks.
Scrap
doesn't lack for spirit! In spite of his (lack of) size, he often gets
to the source of food first.
Let's hope that if he fledges after the other three, his parents will continue to look after him in the nest until he is ready to go!