Thirty-six hours after it's older sibling hatched, chick number two broke out as well. At 11am yesterday morning, the female got up for a stretch and, behold, there was not just one fluffy body underneath her but two! As you can imagine, the 20 or so people gathered around the screens went wild! It was a great moment. The female had been wriggling and wriggling since around half past ten, so things must have been going on below for half an hour or so. With only one and a half days difference in ages, there is very little to choose between the two, they both look exactly the same. The only slight apparent difference yesterday was that the egg tooth was a little sharper and more prominent on one beak than the other (we really can see them in such detail!), so we assume that was the newest of the two. The second chick experienced its first feed at around 2pm yesterday afternoon and has had several since. It is clear when feeding that one chick is just a little more clued up than the other. It turns its head in the right direction and seems a bit more in control - probably the elder of the two. The female is very careful and tender when feeding them. She offers up tiny fragments of fish to whiever beak is available, but she doesn't hang around - if neither beak takes it, she just swallows it down herself! The chicks are propping themselves up on their tiny little wings when they feed, reaching up as high as possible. Their heads look huge compared to their skinny little necks and they have not yet got the muscles or experience to know how to control their heads properly - they flop around like unruly puppets sometimes. In these very first days though, they spend much of the time snug and warm under their mother, just like the last 6 weeks when they have been in the eggs.
Egg number three is still snug and content in the nest. If it follows the pattern of the others then it may hatch this evening. However, even inside the egg, the chick is likely to be aware of the increased activity in the nest - more movement and sounds around it - and may want to break out sooner rather than later to join in the chick jamboree - could we have a full house by the end of the day?