July 13, 2001: The Oracle chick continues to change appearance before our eyes every day. She is not only growing feathers, but also shedding down at the same time, leading to a rapid rate of changing from white to brown. Being a female, she will likely take her first flight, or "fledge" at about 42 days of age, or somewhere between 19 and 23 July. In the meantime, she is currently spending considerable time excercising her wings and flight muscles, preening, and also venturing outside the nest box to the roof.

In some spots there she is out of view of the cameras, so if you can't spot her, no need to be concerned. She usually reappears fairly soon. Sometimes she is visible in the reflection of the window.

June 27, 2001: Today Brian Latta of SCPBRG banded the one youngster at Oracle. Based on the size of its feet and legs, it is believed to be a female, and so Brian placed female-sized bands on it. Male bands are smaller, and not appropriate for females. She was healthy and robust, and was returned to the box after the banding without incident. As always in these cases, the adults resumed normal care of the youngster soon after the humans were gone. During the removal of the chick for banding, they exhibited the normal behavior of adult peregrines when their nest is intruded upon, giving the defensive "cacking" vocalization. We removed the inviable eggs at the same time, and will soon know whether they were ever fertile.

The chick was banded with black "Visual Identification" (VID) band 34 over C on her left leg, and US Fish and Wildlife Service silver band 1807-70274 on her right. In the future, the black band will be able to be read from a distance with a spotting scope. The silver band will identify her if she is ever found somewhere where we don't hear about it directly. The federal bird banding laboratory keeps track of these numbers.

June 16, 2001: It is now much too late for there to be any hope of the remaining eggs to hatch. As the chick grows and begins to move about, the unhatched eggs will be completely abandoned by the adults. The chick requires constant brooding until it is a little more than two weeks old. At that point, we will begin to see it alone in the nest from time to time as the adults are away hunting. About this time it will also begin to move around in the nest box, at first on its "haunches", then later standing up on its feet, at first awkwardly. It will also become capable of feeding itself, although the adults may continue to feed it directly. Prey, which at first is brought into the box completely plucked by the adults, will have more feathers intact later in the nesting cycle.

Those watching the nestcam will witness an amazing event during the coming weeks. The chick will grow to its adult size and weight by about three weeks of age. Then its feathers will begin to emerge rapidly, so that they are fully emerged by the time it fledges, or leaves the nest in flight, at six weeks of age. It will appear to change appearance almost daily. Falcons, like most other birds, are full-grown when they leave the nest. They exhibit an immature plumage during their first year that distinguishes them from the adults. They molt during their second summer, as the Oracle male is currently doing. It is impossible to age peregrines after they achieve their adult plumage. There are no external clues to the sex of peregrine falcons except their size-like most birds of prey, females are about one third larger than males. When the Oracle chick is a bit over two weeks old, a member of the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group will band it with a US Fish and Wildlife Service leg band on one leg and a visual identification (VID) band on the other leg, such as those Sadie wears. The VID band allows observers to identify the falcon using a spotting scope or binoculars, which helps us track the peregrine's recovery in California.

June 10, 2001: Sometime between the afternoons of Saturday 9 June and Sunday 10 June, while the Nestcam was temporarily down, one of Sadie's eggs hatched. It's still possible for one or both of the other eggs to hatch. When peregrines are young, they require near-constant brooding by the adults to keep warm, so when the chick(s) isn't being fed, the adults will appear much as if they were incubating.

Currently, they are indeed incubating the remaining two eggs while also brooding the youngster. Young are very adept at communicating their comfort or discomfort through a variety of vocalizations, so you may see Sadie and Jimbo reacting accordingly by adjusting their posture, and within days sitting more upright so the young can simply rest against their warm fronts, nestled in feathers. By about 7-10 days of age, the young no longer need this constant warmth, so they will be visible more often. Feeding will probably take place about every 3-4 hours, depending on the size of the prey items. Sadie will likely do most if not all the feeding to begin with, but later Jimbo will join in while Sadie, in turn, takes up hunting again help feed the growing brood. The young will develop rapidly, seeming to change appearance almost daily. A steady supply of food is needed to fuel this amazing growth, so Jimbo has his work cut out for him just now.

June 2, 2001: As Sadie's eggs approach hatching, some interesting things will be happening inside them. During incubation, the developing embryos get their oxygen by diffusion of air through tiny pores in the eggshell into blood vessels that line a membrane on the inside of the shell. As the embryo grows, using up the nutrients of the egg, the aircell in the blunt end of the egg (the little pocket of air you can see between two membranes when you crack a chicken egg for an omelette) expands to fill about a quarter of the space inside the egg.

About two days before hatching, the embryo will poke it's beak into this aircell and begin to breath using its lungs. Soon it will deplete the oxygen there, and break a tiny opening in the eggshell, an event called "pipping". At this point, the chick is able to vocalize, alerting the adults that it's nearing hatching. Hatching itself doesn't take place for about two more days, while the chick prepares to make the transition from egg to hatchling. The hatching process itself takes about an hour.
Newly hatched chicks require near-constant brooding, so it will be difficult to see the difference at first, except when they are being fed. The adults may sit a bit more upright and reposition themselves more often, but otherwise it will look similar to incubation. The eggs will probably hatch within a day or two of each other, with the third one laid hatching last. They hatch with fluffy white down, and are at first unable to see. When Sadie feeds them, she will take a bite of meat and softly "chup" at them, which will cause them to open their beaks so she can place food inside. They grow very quickly, and soon she and Jimbo will have their "hands" full!

May 16, 2001: Oracle peregrines "Sadie" and "Jimbo" have settled in to a normal incubation routine of their three eggs. Peregrine eggs hatch after about 33 days of incubation. Normally incubation does not begin in earnest until the clutch is nearly complete, but in this case Sadie began partial incubation of the first egg right after she laid it. So, it's possible the first egg may hatch about 4-5 June, but more likely the first two will hatch a few days after that. In the meantime, incubation by either bird is clearly a relaxing experience for them. When the chicks hatch, the real work begins!

May 3, 2001: At approximately 3:00 p.m. today, "Sadie" layed her first egg for the year. It can be seen in the depression in the gravel (scrape) in the middle right of the nest-cam view. Like all peregrine eggs, it is rust-colored. Her young mate "Jimbo," as the Oracle employees have named him, was very funny to watch when he first had access to the egg. "Wow, is that ours?? What do I do with this thing??". Like any male peregrine, he will soon figure all that out. But as a very young male, he seemed a bit overwhelmed.

Sadie will likely lay two or three more eggs at approximately 48 hour intervals. Full incubation of the eggs will likely begin after the second, or possibly third, egg. Once incubation begins, hatching will take place in approximately 33 days. In the meantime, Sadie will do most of the incubating, while Young James brings her food and takes his turn on the eggs while she eats and relaxes. Since food exchanges will take place outside the nest box, this will likely look on the Nestcam like Sadie becoming alert, vocalizing (ee-chupping, see Courtship Behavior) and standing up very carefully, with her feet balled up so her sharp talons do not damage the eggs, and walking outside. Her mate will then come in and take over incubation duties. Since peregrines only eat once or twice a day, he will also come in to the box and "offer" to take over for her several times a day, probably doing a long incubation stint in the late morning and afternoon. She may or may not accept these offers - being one-third larger and the dominant partner in breeding, Sadie will be in charge until the young are quite large and both parents will have a full-time job feeding them.