A
group of shots taken yesterday from Box3 first. Will is turning out to
be an excellent father. He works tirelessly all day to bring food to
the chicks.Here he is approaching the nest box. Absolutely confident, he has furled his wings well before he alights on the entrance hole.
Once
in the box, he passes the food over to Rosie ... 
... and flies off for another item.
In
Box1, so far Donna has exceeded my expectations. No more of her eggs
have hatched, and as you can see here, she still has all three chicks.
She
seems to leave the nest roughly every 15 or 20 minutes and makes a few trips
for food for her chicks. She then returns and sits on them again.
They
look quite active. Here you can see her collecting a faecal sac.
She is now removing these from the nest box rather than eating them.
She was lucky in that only three of the ten eggs have hatched. Perhaps she will rear them successfully after all!
Over
in Box3, Will is again proving what a good father he is.For example, Rosie left the nest for a few minutes at 6.44 this morning. She returned at 6.51am - 7 minutes later.
During the time she was off the nest, Will had brought food and fed it to the chicks seven times! (At 6.45, 6.47, 6.47, 6.48, 6.49, 6.50 and 6.51)
Immediately
Rosie returned, Will reverted to passing the food to Rosie without any hint
of 'prima donna' type behaviour. On previous occasions, we have seen the
male become quite possessive about feeding the chicks himself, only passing
the food to the female with obvious reluctance.
This
wasn't an isolated period, he seems to be like this all the day!Keep it up, Will!